InformationWeek

No. 1 Company: CME Group Inc.

Industry: Banking & Financial Services

Highest-Ranking IT Executive: Kevin Kometer, Managing Director & CIO

Key IT Initiatives This Year: Building a 260,000-square-foot data center in Chicago suburbs; integrating with international exchanges as part of global expansion; launching partnership trading initiatives to enter new product markets; moving more legacy IT operations to Java/Linux platform

Past Successes: Expanded to handle more than 300% annual electronic order growth for the past five years; integrated Chicago Mercantile Exchange operations with acquisitions of Chicago Board of Trade and New York Mercantile Exchange; pioneered electronic futures trading in the 1990s

"Bandwidth on the network side is probably the most significant issue we face over time. Not only do we have to work with the business side on it, we have to work with our customers to make sure we're keeping in front and their technology is evolving with ours." --Kevin Kometer