When he retires, Dominique Cerutti intends to give back to his wife the time he has spent away from home working and travelling over the years. She will have to be patient. For the immediate future, the 49-year-old Frenchman will be a very busy man.

Despite Cerutti's formal title of deputy chief executive of NYSE Euronext, he is the exchange's global chief technology officer and chairman of the European business. He is about to reach his first anniversary after succeeding veteran Jean-François Théodore, who brokered the merger of the NYSE and Euronext in 2007.