Mercuria Energy Group

Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi started Mercuria in 2004 and, in under two decades, built it into one of the five largest independent energy and commodity merchants. The hinge was a single 2014 deal: buying J.P. Morgan's physical commodities unit, which vaulted the firm from fast-growing trader into the merchant major leagues.

From Geneva it trades crude, refined products, gas, power, LNG, LPG, NGLs, metals and a growing book of energy-transition and environmental products on its own account, pairing physical supply, logistics and storage with derivatives. The two founders still anchor a business that now reaches across dozens of countries.