Billy Hult on Tradeweb, Leadership and Betting on People

Harry Stebbings asks Tradeweb CEO Billy Hult about childhood. Hult recalls being quiet and doing well at subjects that engaged him while struggling with others. He thinks people often perform best when emotionally invested, but cautions that simply following a passion can be naïve when early career decisions have lasting consequences.

Growing up in Manhattan, Hult worked as an off-track betting clerk in the South Bronx during a summer around the end of high school or early college. The demanding job required quick thinking and introduced him to many kinds of people. He later worked as a bond broker and trader, roles he says he did not enjoy or perform especially well.

Some parts of being CEO feel natural to Hult and others are harder. He views a company as a collection of people with different personalities and motivations. The CEO must represent it externally, set strategy and remain sufficiently close to execution to understand whether the plan is working.

Hult does not equate hiring strong people with disappearing: he tries to support them and make a personal difference where he is strongest, including relationships with important clients and investors. Watching JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon focus on customers at a conference reinforced for him how much personal attention can matter.

Hult likes the idea of paying attention when people reveal their character. Stebbings pushes back that people change; Hult agrees, saying leaders should keep observing and recognize growth rather than freeze someone in a single past impression.

Stebbings asks how to be direct without creating a culture of fear. Hult values directness but admits he sometimes softens difficult feedback too much. He believes a leader can be kind and understanding while maintaining high standards, and says he cares about being liked even though he does not consider himself a pushover.

There is no perfect rule for when to seek consensus and when to decide alone, Hult says. He wants input from smart colleagues and clients, but when a consequential decision goes wrong the CEO cannot pass the blame. He will own such decisions even when consultation is broad.

Tradeweb grew largely through organic investment rather than major acquisitions, according to Hult. He has encouraged the company to use the language of bigger, potentially transformative bets and deals to push itself toward change. Like an awkward adjustment in a golf lesson, he says, emphasizing a new direction can help an organization feel and practice it.

Stebbings asks whether top engineers want to work at Tradeweb. Hult acknowledges that the company has work to do to improve its profile for technical and business talent. Its relatively quiet history also had advantages: as an electronic interface connecting major financial institutions, it could enable clients without needing to be the biggest ego in the room.

Hult recalls a banker reminding him that a major asset manager was also the banker’s client. The exchange illustrated the egos and relationships that coexist around financial-market infrastructure. He thinks Tradeweb’s public-company status makes increasing its visibility more important, while preserving an understanding of its role alongside customers.

Hult openly acknowledges his own ego. When he was president and second-in-command for many years, he wanted recognition as a partner to the CEO rather than an anonymous supporting player. Their relationship accommodated that desire, even as the CEO remained ultimately in charge.

Becoming CEO felt like a natural next chapter rather than a moment dominated by anxiety, Hult says. He had worked toward the position and felt ready. He also recognizes a challenge in his informal style: colleagues should not mistake a casual manner for casual expectations about results.

Hult sometimes notices pressure at home, where it can be difficult to unwind and be present after a demanding day. He does not generally feel nervous in public appearances or earnings calls, although unfamiliar parts of a board meeting can still produce nerves. Stebbings describes a similar struggle to shift attention from work to family.

Hult says that overall he has been present for his children, but recently missed several of his daughter’s final high-school basketball games because of work. She understood, yet he feels the loss of those moments. Looking back, he says the work may not have been worth missing them, although he cannot know exactly how the alternative would have played out.

He describes himself as an affectionate father who sometimes struggles to say no. Raising ambitious children with more financial privilege than he had is difficult, he says. He tries to distinguish access to privilege from being spoiled and to teach the satisfaction of earning something oneself.

Asked to rank money, fame and power, Hult puts fame a distant third and says power deserves an honest assessment rather than automatic dismissal. He likes the idea of prospering without seeking attention. He does not assert that wealthy leaders are automatically better, though he sees examples where experience and financial independence may help.

Hult recalls briefly meeting Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman before Tradeweb went public; Blackstone was then a majority shareholder. Schwarzman told him to enjoy winning. Hult took it as a reminder to appreciate a moment earned through hard work, from someone he regarded as experienced in building businesses.

Public-company life brings governance and regulatory demands that consume time, Hult says, but it also gives a company visibility and a public measure of performance. He checks the stock price and tries to distinguish a broad market repricing from a response to weak company performance. Even with that distinction, adverse reactions can be personally difficult.

Stebbings asks whether Hult has made sufficiently bold bets as CEO. Hult says some strategic deals were relatively small, but he has taken meaningful risks on people and relationships, including hires and board members. He sees openness to different voices as part of building those partnerships.

Despite considering judgment of people a strength, Hult estimates only about half of his bets work out. The failures can involve misjudging someone’s abilities, pushing them toward a role they do not want or a breakdown in chemistry. He reflects on whether he communicated expectations and feedback clearly, while recognizing that relationships are created by both sides.

Hult does not believe the first doubt about a hire always requires immediate action: some people turn around after a difficult start. His optimism leads him to see potential and push people to improve, but he says the opportunity to improve is not unlimited. The decision depends on the circumstances and the response to expectations.

Stebbings worries that younger workers are less willing to work hard. Hult avoids making a sweeping pronouncement about a generation, but values hustle, grit and perseverance, and sees substantial opportunity for young people who develop them. The two discuss whether achievement from an early age or resilience through setbacks is more valuable.

Hult says he is also attracted to people whose strengths differ from his own, including exceptional analytical intelligence. Stebbings describes having hired both prestigious but ill-suited candidates and inexperienced, hungry candidates who were not ready. Hult suggests that combining intelligence with drive and resilience is especially powerful.

Hult remembers the culture of Bear Stearns from his time in bond markets as one that valued grit and practical intelligence beyond pedigree. Its collapse was painful to watch, he says. He treats that culture as a personal memory, not proof that any one hiring profile works universally.

Reflecting on crises, Hult says he was in the World Trade Center’s North Tower on September 11. During the 2008 financial crisis, Tradeweb watched major customers struggle and uncertainty spread across the financial system. More recent regional-bank shocks and the pandemic reinforced his sense that systems can be fragile.

Hult believes markets were more resilient in 2024 than during the financial crisis because institutions had a playbook to preserve market functioning. He nevertheless worries about geopolitical volatility, including the Middle East, Russia and China, and notes that global events affect Tradeweb through markets and its international business. These are his observations at the time, not a forecast of market safety.

Before the 2024 US election, Hult says he changed his mind about Donald Trump’s electability and predicted a win. He says the prospect affected him negatively while allowing that people can discuss policies they believe Trump got right. These are opinions and a prediction from the March 2024 conversation.

Hult praises New York’s resilience and recommends the financial-market passages in Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. His advice to his earlier CEO self is to create boundaries quickly and protect time, including when deciding which external relationships merit attention.

Given a dinner with anyone, Hult would choose his father, who died when Hult was 26. He regrets that his father did not see his later success or spend time with his grandchildren. The answer shifts the discussion from professional decisions to the personal moments that cannot be recovered.

Hult says he is optimistic about Tradeweb’s opportunities and his own growth as a leader. Over the next decade he hopes the company will become a larger, stronger global marketplace through partnerships and new directions. As CEO he identifies complacency, office politics and losing sight of customers as possible threats; these are company ambitions and management views, not guaranteed outcomes.