Brad Katsuyama

Personal life

Born in 1978, Katsuyama is a native of Markham, Ontario, Canada and is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. He is married with two children. Katsuyama lives in New York with his wife Ashley and his two sons, Brandon and Rylan.

RBC and pre-IEX career

Before founding IEX, Katsuyama worked for many years at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), where he was formerly the Global Head of Electronic Sales and Trading. In this role, he was responsible for multiple global teams including: electronic sales, electronic trading, algorithmic trading, market structure strategy, client implementation and product management. His prior management roles at RBC were Head of US Cash Equity Trading, Head of US Hedge Fund Coverage, and Head of US Technology Trading.

HFT problems, discovery and response

While at RBC, he noticed that placing a single large order that can be fulfilled only through many different stock exchanges was being taken advantage of by predatory stock scalpers. Scalpers, noticing the order would not be able to be fulfilled by one single exchange, would instead buy the securities on the other exchanges, so that by the time the rest of the large order arrived to those exchanges the scalpers could sell the securities at a higher price. All these events would happen in milliseconds not perceivable to humans but perceivable to computers. He instead led a team that implemented THOR, a securities' order-management system where large orders are split into many different sub-orders with each sub-order arriving at the same time to all the exchanges through the use of intentional delays.

Post-RBC and IEX founding

Following Katsuyama's discovery of certain unfair high-frequency trading practices, he decided to improve the business of the stock market, leaving RBC in 2012 to start-up a fairer stock trading venue. The Investors Exchange, IEX was born from his RBC departure. IEX is an emerging stock exchange, organized as an alternative trading system, also known as a dark pool. Company representatives have stated their intention to convert to a public exchange upon reaching sufficient trading volume. It opened for its first day of trading on October 25, 2013. William O'Brien, at the time president of competing business BATS Global Markets, during a much watched and discussed debate on CNBC, asserted in April 2014 the IEX was trying to build its business by generating 'fear', 'mistrust' and 'accusations'. Financial writer Michael Lewis praised IEX as an appropriate and beneficial response to HFT abuses. Since the publishing of Flash Boys and the opening of IEX, several U.S. authorities have confirmed they are looking into certain practices used by high-frequency traders. The FBI, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Justice Department and the Attorney General of New York State all have investigations underway.