Brennan Carley is Managing Principal of Proton Advisors, which provides advisory services to banks, private equity and venture investors, asset managers, and fintech companies, bringing expertise in market data, trading technology and telecommunications. He serves as an independent director on the boards of several financial technology companies. 

Previously Brennan spent 10 years as managing Director at Refinitiv (now London Stock Exchange Group). He created and lead the Refinitiv Consulting team, ran the Enterprise Data business (a $1.8B business that provides content and related services including real-time, historical, reference data, enterprise analytic services, data management platforms, and managed services), and lead company-wide programs such as the MiFID2 program, the FRTB program, and the enterprise data program.

Brennan was co-founder and SVP of Product & Marketing at Spread Networks, a provider of low latency fiber networks to the financial markets (featured in Michael Lewis’s “Flash Boys”), CEO of Monitor110 (alternative data), and COO of NYFIX (later NYSE Technologies). He founded Radianz (now BT Radianz) a global network provider for the financial markets. Prior to that he was head of technology for Instinet. He began his career at IBM developing operating system software, then moving into IBM’s financial services practice.

He has been a director on the boards of fintech companies including Marketcetera (algorithmic trading), Yipes (telecommunications), and Monitor110 (alternative data). Brennan has advised private equity firm Warburg Pincus as “entrepreneur in residence” has taught courses in Strategy for Technology Companies at New York University, and currently mentors start-ups at Cornell Tech.

Brennan earned a bachelors degree in Economics and Computer Science from New York University and has done graduate studies at Columbia University, Harvard Business School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has been listed in The Trade magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in Buy-Side Trading” and featured in the books “Architects of Electronic Trading” and Michael Lewis’ “Flash Boys.”