What is Richard McVey’s net worth and salary?
Richard McVey is an American entrepreneur, fintech innovator, and business executive who has a net worth of $600 million. Rick McVey is best known as the founder, chairman, and CEO of MarketAxess, one of the world’s leading electronic trading platforms for corporate bonds and fixed-income securities. Since launching the company in 2000, McVey has helped transform how institutional investors buy and sell debt instruments, replacing traditional voice trading with a transparent digital marketplace. Under his leadership, MarketAxess became a Fortune 1000 company and a member of the S&P 500, with billions in annual trading volume and a valuation that made McVey one of the most successful executives in modern financial technology. He is also known for his marriage to journalist Lara Spencer, co-anchor of “Good Morning America.”
MarketAxess Stock Holdings
As of this writing, Richard owns roughly $700 million worth of MarketAxess stock. He makes a base salary of $3.2 million and in the last two decades has sold at least $150 million worth of company shares.
Early Life and Education
Richard Mitchell McVey was born in 1959 and raised in Painesville, Ohio. His father was a financial executive who ran an oil company, which exposed McVey early to the business and investment world. After high school, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in finance. He went on to earn an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, setting the foundation for a career that would bridge traditional finance and emerging digital technologies.
Early Career
McVey began his career at JP Morgan, where he spent more than a decade in the firm’s North American futures and options division. He rose to become managing director and head of North American futures and options, overseeing institutional sales and trading operations. During his tenure, he recognized the inefficiencies and lack of transparency in fixed-income markets and saw the potential for technology to revolutionize bond trading.
Founding of MarketAxess
In 2000, McVey launched MarketAxess as part of JP Morgan’s LabMorgan technology incubator, securing early backing from the bank and several major investment firms. The goal was to create an electronic platform where institutional investors could trade corporate bonds directly, improving liquidity and reducing transaction costs. MarketAxess quickly gained traction with asset managers, insurance companies, and broker-dealers seeking more efficient fixed-income trading solutions.
McVey guided the company through its early growth phase and took it public in 2004 on the NASDAQ under the ticker MKTX. As CEO and chairman, he expanded MarketAxess globally and introduced innovations such as Open Trading, an all-to-all network that allows buyers and sellers to trade directly without intermediaries. The company’s success has been credited with reshaping fixed-income markets in the same way electronic platforms revolutionized equities decades earlier.
(Photo by Victor Hugo/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Leadership and Achievements
Under McVey’s leadership, MarketAxess has become one of the most profitable fintech firms in the world. Its platform handles hundreds of billions of dollars in trading volume each month, and its technology is now used by more than 1,800 institutional clients across 50 countries. McVey’s focus on data analytics, market transparency, and electronic innovation has made him a respected figure in both Wall Street and Silicon Valley circles.
He has received multiple awards for entrepreneurship and leadership, including recognition from Institutional Investor and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. McVey also serves on the board of Miami University, his alma mater, and supports educational and philanthropic initiatives focused on financial literacy and technology innovation.
Personal Life
Richard McVey married television journalist Lara Spencer in 2018 in an intimate ceremony in Vail, Colorado. The couple splits their time between homes in Connecticut and New York. Though McVey tends to keep a low public profile, his success in building MarketAxess has made him one of the most influential and quietly wealthy figures in modern finance.
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