Rick McVey

Rick McVey
Born	Richard McVey
Birthplace	United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Business executive, entrepreneur
Known for	Founder, Chairman, and CEO of MarketAxess
Education	Miami University (B.S., 1981) Indiana University (MBA)
Spouse(s)	Lara Spencer (m. 2018)

Richard "Rick" McVey is an American entrepreneur, fintech executive, and business leader who founded MarketAxess Holdings Inc., an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities that transformed how institutional investors and broker-dealers trade corporate bonds and other fixed-income products. McVey has served as the company's chairman and chief executive officer since its inception, guiding it from a startup concept into a publicly traded corporation listed on the Nasdaq. Before launching MarketAxess, McVey built a career in finance at J.P. Morgan, where he held senior positions in fixed-income sales and trading. A graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Indiana University, McVey has become a significant philanthropist in higher education, making major donations to both his alma maters as well as to Colby College. He is married to television personality Lara Spencer, co-anchor of Good Morning America.

Early Life

Rick McVey grew up in the United States and developed an early interest in competitive athletics, particularly golf. As a young man, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he joined the men's golf team as a walk-on player. Despite not being recruited with an athletic scholarship, McVey earned a place on the team through determination and skill, eventually rising to become co-captain of the 1981 Mid-American Conference (MAC) championship golf squad. His experience as a walk-on athlete who rose to team leadership would later be cited as formative in shaping the competitive drive and persistence that characterized his business career.

McVey graduated from Miami University in 1981 with a bachelor's degree. He subsequently pursued graduate education in business, earning a Master of Business Administration degree from Indiana University.

Education

McVey earned his undergraduate degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, as a member of the class of 1981. During his time at Miami, he was a member of the varsity men's golf team, joining as a walk-on and ultimately serving as co-captain of the team that won the Mid-American Conference championship. Following his undergraduate studies, McVey attended Indiana University, where he received his MBA. His educational background in business provided the foundation for his subsequent career in financial services and technology.

Career

Early Career at J.P. Morgan

After completing his MBA, McVey entered the financial services industry. He built a career at J.P. Morgan, one of the largest and most established investment banks in the world, where he worked in fixed-income sales and trading. Over the course of his tenure at J.P. Morgan, McVey rose to senior positions within the firm's fixed-income division. His experience in the bond markets gave him firsthand exposure to the inefficiencies of fixed-income trading, which at the time was conducted almost entirely through telephone-based, over-the-counter transactions between dealers and institutional investors. This experience would serve as the catalyst for the founding of MarketAxess.

Founding and Growth of MarketAxess

McVey founded MarketAxess in 2000 with the goal of bringing electronic trading to the corporate bond market, a sector of finance that had remained largely untouched by the technological revolution that had transformed equity trading in the 1990s. The concept was to create an electronic platform where institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and hedge funds could request and compare prices from multiple broker-dealers simultaneously, thereby increasing transparency and efficiency in fixed-income markets.

MarketAxess initially focused on investment-grade corporate bonds before expanding into other fixed-income asset classes including high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, Eurobonds, and other credit products. The platform's multi-dealer request-for-quote (RFQ) model represented a significant departure from the traditional single-dealer telephone trading model that had dominated the bond market for decades.

The company went public in November 2004, listing its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange. As the electronic trading of bonds gained broader acceptance among institutional market participants, MarketAxess grew steadily in both trading volume and revenue. McVey continued to serve as the company's chairman and chief executive officer throughout its evolution from a startup into a major financial technology firm.

Under McVey's leadership, MarketAxess became one of the leading electronic trading platforms in fixed-income markets globally. The company's growth reflected broader trends in the electronification of bond markets, which accelerated following the 2008 financial crisis as new regulations reduced the willingness of banks to hold large inventories of bonds on their balance sheets. This shift increased demand for electronic platforms that could connect buyers and sellers more efficiently.

McVey's role at MarketAxess has been characterized as that of both a technology innovator and a market structure reformer, as the company's platform helped bring greater price transparency and competition to markets that had historically been opaque and dominated by a small number of large dealer banks.

Philanthropy

Miami University

McVey has been a major benefactor of his undergraduate alma mater, Miami University. In October 2020, Miami University announced a $20 million gift from McVey to fund the construction of a new data science building on its Oxford, Ohio campus. The gift was intended to support the expansion of Miami's transdisciplinary data science program, reflecting McVey's belief in the growing importance of data science and analytics across academic disciplines and in the financial services industry. The announcement described the gift as enabling a "visionary new building" that would house programs combining computer science, statistics, and data analytics with applications across multiple fields.

McVey's connection to Miami University extends beyond financial contributions. As a former walk-on member and co-captain of the 1981 MAC championship golf team, he has remained engaged with the university's athletic programs as well as its academic mission. A 2022 profile published by Miami University's athletics department highlighted McVey's journey from walk-on golfer to successful business founder, presenting his story as an example of the values cultivated through Miami's athletic and academic programs.

Colby College

McVey has also made significant philanthropic contributions to Colby College, a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine, where he serves as a member of the board of trustees. In May 2024, Colby College announced that McVey had made a $10 million gift to establish the McVey Center for Computational and Data Sciences. The center was designed to accelerate scientific discovery at Colby by providing resources and infrastructure for computational research and data science education. The announcement noted that the McVey Center would serve as a hub for integrating computational methods and data science approaches across Colby's curriculum, supporting the college's efforts to prepare students for careers in an increasingly data-driven economy.

In addition to his support for academic programs at Colby, McVey and his family have contributed to the college's athletic programs. In October 2025, Colby announced that a gift to its Dare Northward campaign had created the McVey Family Women's Lacrosse Assistant Coach position, the first named varsity women's assistant coaching position to be endowed at the college. The endowment ensures that the assistant coaching position will exist in perpetuity, providing long-term stability for the women's lacrosse program.

McVey's philanthropic focus on data science and computational sciences at both Miami University and Colby College reflects a consistent interest in expanding access to education in fields that intersect with his professional expertise in financial technology and electronic trading.

Personal Life

Rick McVey is married to Lara Spencer, the television personality and co-anchor of ABC's Good Morning America. The couple married in 2018. They reside in Connecticut, where they own a home that has been featured in media coverage.

McVey's connection to Maine extends beyond his philanthropic work at Colby College. In June 2025, a news report identified a Rick McVey as a cancer patient in Maine whose treatment was disrupted by a cyberattack on Central Maine Medical Center (CMMC), part of Central Maine Healthcare. The report described how the cybersecurity breach forced a pause in the patient's cancer treatment, raising concerns about patient safety and data privacy in the healthcare sector.

Legacy

Rick McVey's primary legacy is in the transformation of fixed-income trading through the founding and development of MarketAxess. The company he created played a central role in shifting bond trading from telephone-based, over-the-counter transactions to electronic platforms, a transition that has increased price transparency, reduced transaction costs, and broadened market access for institutional investors. MarketAxess became one of the defining companies of the fintech movement in capital markets, and its success helped demonstrate the viability of electronic trading in asset classes that had long resisted technological disruption.

McVey's personal trajectory—from a walk-on college golfer at a public university to the founder and chairman of a major publicly traded financial technology company—has been highlighted in profiles and university communications as an example of entrepreneurial achievement rooted in persistence and competitive drive. His philanthropic investments in data science and computational sciences at Miami University and Colby College reflect an effort to support the next generation of students and researchers working at the intersection of technology and analytics, fields that are increasingly central to both the financial industry and the broader economy.

As a trustee of Colby College and a major donor to multiple institutions, McVey has also established a presence as a philanthropist in higher education, with a particular focus on programs that bridge traditional academic disciplines with modern computational and data-driven approaches.