The TRADE announces Leaders in Trading 2025 award winners

The TRADE is thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Leaders in Trading awards, with the recipients honoured at a glittering ceremony held last night at The Savoy, London. 

More than 300 industry leaders joined The TRADE to recognise the year’s leading individuals and firms within the industry, with awards honouring the buy-side, sell-side, service providers, technology firms and venues. 

Input for the coveted Buy-Side awards, awarded in partnership with SIX Swiss Exchange, was opened to the industry after a lengthy period of industry consultation prior. This year, the highly anticipated award for Trader of the Year went to Michael Johnson, Columbia Threadneedle. Additionally, Royal London Asset Management also took home the highly coveted Trading Desk of the Year award.   

Among the other buy-side winners, Nordea Asset Management and Ninety One won the awards for Multi-Asset Trading Desk of the Year and Fixed Income Trading Desk of the Year, respectively. Meanwhile, Legal & General Investment Management received the award for Foreign Exchange Trading Desk of the Year. 

In another individual award recognition, Evan Canwell of T. Rowe Price was honoured with the Buy-Side Market Structure Expert of the Year award. 

This year’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement award for the buy-side was handed to Louis de Kock, head of trading at Global Poverty Carbon Justice, in recognition of his contributions to the industry, both on the buy- and sell-side, having spent more than three decades working across financial markets. 

The TRADE also unveiled a new award for 2025, the Legacy Award, recognising an individual who has been committed to the industry and their longstanding service. This year, the inaugural winner of this prestigious award was Tony Shaw, former executive director at SIX Swiss Exchange.  

The night also included the Innovation Awards, running for the first year this year, to celebrate those in the industry working hard to advance the markets and fuel change. Across categories spanning data and trading analytics, liquidity provision, pre-trade data digitisation and FX liquidity provision, FlexTrade and Goldman Sachs, BTIG, Saphyre and IMC took home these distinguished awards.  

The Editors’ Choice categories are always highly competitive, and this year proved no exception. Across the 14 awards, this year’s winners – as judged by The TRADE’s editorial panel – were all worthy given their achievements over the last year. 

In the trading venues arena, Cboe Europe, Aquis Matching Pool, Tradeweb, LSEG, Euronext and Liquidnet each took home Outstanding Trading Venue awards, while SIX Group was crowned overall Outstanding Exchange Group. 

BMLL Technologies claimed the award for Outstanding Market Data Services Provider – Equities, while Propellant Digital took home the same award but for Fixed Income. Elsewhere, TS Imagine collected the Outstanding Trading Technology Provider award. 

Within the Algorithmic Trading and EMS categories – which are based on the results of The TRADE’s annual surveys – Virtu Triton took home multiple awards – namely, Best Market Access and Best Provider – UK & Europe. Elsewhere, BNP Paribas took home two Algorithmic Trading awards for Best Access to Market and Best Provider – UK & Europe.  

In October, prior to the Leaders in Trading awards gala, The TRADE also recognised this year’s Rising Stars of Trading and Execution in a standalone event. This list consisted of 25 of the buy-side’s up and coming talents of the future. The ceremony for the Rising Stars marked the eleventh annual event, with many of the previous year’s winners now earning nods within the Leaders in Trading categories. 

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners: 

Algorithmic Trading: