It is not strange for successful people to pass through safely during crises. Despite the crises that hit the global economy in succession, Lee Olsky succeeded in transforming his startup into a giant that competes Wall Street lordsvalued at $20 billion.
Olsky is set to step down as CEO of Tradeweb Markets following more than a decade of leading the bond trading platform he co-founded, saying a change of leadership is necessary in preparation for a new cycle of growth.
The US group said on Wednesday that Olsky, who launched Tradeweb in 1996, will step down as CEO at the end of the year. He will also replace Martin Brand, a partner in private equity group Blackstone, as chairman of the company’s board, who has decided to step down, while Billy Holt will take over as CEO of Tradeweb.
Under Olsky’s direction, TradeWeb has become one of the most influential players in the fixed income market as more deals shift from negotiating over the phone to executing them electronically.
Tradeweb was one of the first places to use the Internet as the backbone of their operations. The volume of the company’s executions in the bond, mortgage and derivatives market through its electronic platform amounted to more than 1.1 trillion dollars per day on average last January.
The company has also been one of the best-performing US publicly traded companies over the past three years, with revenues of more than $1 billion, a growth of 130 percent, versus the S&P 500 average of 55 percent, according to FactSet data.
For his part, Olsky told the Financial Times that it was a “difficult decision” to step down: “It has been a big part of my life for 25 years,” according to what Al Arabiya.net has seen.
Olsky founded Tradeweb in 1996, following quitting his previous job as a banker at Credit Suisse, to launch a company that would build on the then-internet revolution in an industry dominated by Wall Street giants, and he was among the survivors of the dot-com bubble.
For the second time, Olsky succeeded in being chosen as CEO of Tradeweb in September 2008, a week before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, so that the company would continue to operate without being one of the affected by the global financial crisis that hit the markets.