Find out who has won at our black-tie event in London on 6 June. Book your table here.

Meet the five nominees for the prestigious prize:

Robert Barnes, founder, Anopolis

Robert Barnes served for nine years as CEO of Turquoise, the London Stock Exchange Group’s multilateral trading facility. He is a well-known figure in the City’s trading community whose opinion is often sought at conferences and other events.

During his tenure at Turquoise, he established a partnership with Plato Partnership to develop a non-displayed trading service. Average daily turnover for Turquoise Plato has grown by nearly 700% since 2013.

Prior to Turquoise, Barnes was the inaugural chief executive of UBS’s MTF. It grew to be the largest MTF in Europe and was bought by Aquis Exchange in 2022.

He departed from Turquoise at the end of 2022 and is now working at the consultancy he established in 2013, Anopolis.

Enrico Bruni, head of Europe and Asia, Tradeweb

Enrico Bruni has been with Tradeweb for 20 years, joining the over-the-counter trading platform in 2003 as a product manager. He became the head of Tradeweb’s European and Asian business in 2013.

During his time at the firm Bruni has been a key part of several new initiatives. Under his leadership, the business in Europe and Asia has been expanding: in 2022 36% of Tradeweb’s revenue came from outside the US. He now leads a team of 300 and last year oversaw the opening of a new Paris office.

In 2022, Tradeweb announced a joint venture with Bloomberg and MarketAxess with the aim of becoming the consolidated tape provider for European bonds.

Isabelle Girolami, CEO, LCH Ltd

Isabelle Girolami is the chief executive of LCH Ltd, the London Stock Exchange Group’s London-based clearing house. Together with its French business it forms LCH Group.

The LCH cleared record volumes in 2022, with its SwapClear division processing 8.2 million trades. The clearing house retains a dominant market share, clearing 95% of the US dollar swap market and 94% of the euro interest rate derivatives.

Under Girolami’s leadership, LCH has been transitioning interest rate derivatives away from Libor to replacement rates. By the end of May, it will have moved 800,000 contracts worth $80tn in notional value.

Girolami is the vice-chair of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe and a board member of the Global Financial Markets Association.

Paul Humphrey, chief executive, BMLL Technologies

Paul Humphrey serves as the CEO of BMLL Technologies, a data and analytics firm. Over the past year, Humphrey has helped to close a $26m funding round and added several tier 1 clients.

Humphrey has also helped to secure new partnerships with other major data providers. Factset is working with BMLL to provide granular historical tick data, Aquis Exchange uses BMLL data to provide market participants with insights into market structure dynamics and Six Swiss Exchange uses its data for order book analytics.

BMLL has also recently added the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England as clients.

Humphrey was previously global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities at Euronext.

Natan Tiefenbrun, president, Cboe Europe

Natan Tiefenbrun joined Cboe Europe as its head of European equities in June 2021 and a year later was promoted to president.

With Tiefenbrun at its helm, 2022 saw Cboe Europe hit milestones. For six months of the year, it was the largest equities exchange in Europe by market share and underwent huge growth in its equity derivatives market.

Its block trading platform, Cboe BIDS, has become the largest of its type in Europe. It reached an all-time high market share of 36% in the autumn.

Tiefenbrun has also been an outspoken proponent of a consolidated tape for European equities, one that he envisions would be real-time and include pre and post-trade data. His viewpoint runs counter to other primary listing exchanges in Europe that have sought to develop a more limited tape.

To contact the author of this story with feedback or news, email Clare Dickinson