MarrGwen Townsend earned her master’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1976. She and her husband Stuart Townsend founded several financial technology firms including Townsend Analytics in 1985 and Archipelago, LLC in 1996.
Townsend Analytics’ product RealTick was the first real-time trading platform for the internet and is still used on trading desks for execution, analysis and order management. This led to their creation of Archipelago, an electronic communications network that, with its best execution model, revolutionized the way the stock market works. Archipelago became the first electronic stock exchange and is now the NYSE Group. She retired in 2007. She is on the Board of Directors of the Joffrey Ballet and has been affiliated with many UChicago initiatives, such as the UChicago Urban Education Institute and the UChicago Medical Center.