CEO Today USA Awards

www.ceotodaymagazine.com 84 CEO Today USAAwards 2017 NEW YORK Numerix. Having pioneered the market for multi-asset class pricing capabilities, Numerix was recognized as a pricing leader by Celent in 2007. This combined direct and indirect strategy created a channel that allowed the organization to quickly scale. The end result was growing the Numerix partner ecosystem from four partners in 2003 to over 90 partners today. The Turning Point One of Steve’s core strengths is recognizing opportunities in times of challenge. He recognized very early on, right at the cusp of the 2008financialcrisis,thatfailure,reputationdamageand,ultimately, risk management, would enter into extreme circumstances for capital markets players. Seeing how the crisis would expose gaps in the risk management practices of financial institutions, Steve quickly pivoted Numerix into the broader capital markets risk management space and, under his guidance, the company introduced new analytic offerings and derivative pricing solutions that became game changers for the firm and the financial services industry. The watershed moment that shaped Numerix to this day was the fall of Lehman Brothers. With trillions of dollars in outstanding derivatives needing to be reconciled with counterparties, Numerix was selected on behalf of the Lehman creditors to value millions of terminated trades. This was arguably the most complex and one of the largest derivatives’ portfolios in the world. Not only did Numerix facilitate the unwinding of these positions, but because of its work, Lehman was able to return billions to creditors. Numerix was once again recognized as one of the industry’s leading pricing solutions for OTC derivatives and structured products by Celent in 2009. As Numerix worked side-by-side with the Lehman traders and IT staff, it was clear that a more integrated and holistic approach for managing risk was not something that was nice to have, but a requirement. Through this experience, Steve recognized an opportunity to look at risk differently. So, he made the key decision to re-evaluate Numerix’s core analytics solution and creatively determine how it could be maximized to pivot the organization into what became a rapidly changing market of derivatives risk management. Becoming a Pioneer in Risk, too Steve quickly realized that the financial crisis would immediately create opportunities in derivatives risk management, so he wasted no time in pivoting Numerix in that direction. After the Lehman Brothers experience, Numerix continued to build out pricing capabilities for the front office, and combine it with specific market risk capabilities. The solution evolved into a powerful analytics engine capable of bringing front and the middle office risk calculations together into a single database, and thus providing aggregated risk analysis to every level of the organization in real-time. As part of its pivot to risk, Numerix developed one of the industry’s most comprehensive risk management technology solutions. Financial institutions were increasingly selecting Numerix because it enabled them to generate risk information across different departments within the institution—something that wasn’t possible just a few short years ago. In fact, Numerix’s new and enhanced technology offerings encouraged financial institutions to re-examine the way they exercised proper risk control, from front office to back office, in order to maintain their competency in a market full of challenges. The first key market infrastructure change driven by new regulatory oversight was the introduction of a new pricing adjustment that accounted for counterparty credit risk. This new adjustment required derivatives users to price-in the likelihood of default into the cost of a trade. Both a technology challenge and a quantitative finance challenge, the introduction of this new risk measure created the perfect opportunity for Numerix to dominate the risk market. Given the company’s deep quantitative roots, Steve quickly brought this new derivatives valuation adjustment to market and positioned Numerix for what ultimately became an entire offering of required pricing adjustments, including those taking into account the cost of funding, capital and margin. This marked the next stage in the growth of Numerix’s reputation as it emerged as a pricing leader. As the solution continued to grow, Numerix introduced Numerix XVA, a single platform for enterprise-level risk management and front office risk calculation, including pre-trade pricing and profitability measures. Oneview: A Technology Breakthrough Innovation, creating technology beyond expectations, and the passion to challenge what’s possible are three of the core values Steve infuses throughout the firm. This is most evidenced in its breakthrough product, Numerix Oneview. Building on the success of the pricing and risk analytics, Numerix realized an opportunity to offer a unified analytic application platform that could support needs related to front office pre-trade analysis as well as middle office risk. Introduced to the market in 2016 and already gaining significant industry recognition, Numerix Oneview provides a unified view of risk across an institution, breaking down silos between departments and trading desks to provide real-time market risk measures and counterparty exposures that firms can utilize to make informed risk and capital allocation decisions. Leveraging the industry’s leading risk and pricing analytics, Oneview enables users to understand and manage enterprise-level exposure to any risk, across large and diverse portfolios comprised of vanillas to exotics from any asset class. With Oneview, Numerix puts critical decision variables at the fingertips of senior management where they can respond to market changes and anticipate future risks that might impact profitability.