e-FOREX : INTERVIEW


Having coffee with a true FX visionary


Larry Levy meets up with Dr. Richard Olsen, CEO of Olsen Ltd. and Chairman of OANDA Corporation.


Its Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 on the shores of Lake Zurich and a crisp winters morning. I’m on my way for a 9:15am slot with Richard Olsen, co-founder of OANDA Corporation. As I rush out of the train at Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof, I call to say I am running a little late.


“Take your time,” Richard reassures me like an old friend. “I am sure to be busy in the meantime.” I immediately feel much less guilty and somewhat at ease, even more eager to meet Richard Olsen now.


Just a short tram ride from Zurich’s Paradeplatz and Bahnhofstrasse I arrive at Olsen Ltd, sublimely nestled on the shores of Lake Zurich. Olsen Ltd is located half in a black steel and glass building and half in an attractive old red and yellow bricked mill connected by a glass footbridge.


Waiting for me and beaming is the Chairman of one of the worlds most successful retail forex brokers, OANDA. I feel immediately at ease. A palpable sense of understatement pervades this place, as if proceeding humbly. The Chairman appears and ushers me across the glass bridge into the old mill building into a meeting room that is more old art school than forex broker and fund establishment. Richard scurries out to fetch me a coffee and I am immediately impressed with a sense of an intellectual, cerebral world here, far away from places like Paradeplatz, Wall Street and the Square Mile yet quietly rather powerful. “I’ve lived in within a few blocks of here all my life,” states Richard.


We begin our interview and I have much to learn about the many and varied activities taking place within Olsen Ltd.


100 | april 2011 e-FOREX


Richard, it’s been said that one of the objectives of your business career has been to transform finance into a ‘high tech’ industry and make it into a true engineering science. How successful do think you’ve been with that?


On the one hand it has been a big success and on the other hand, very disappointing. My wildest dreams have been surpassed on the intellectual and research side. We have made fascinating discoveries beyond my imagination. But it is difficult to transform these rewarding insights into real products that change how the financial system functions.


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