London, England, United Kingdom
Business builder. Innovator. Motivational leader. Dynamic Senior Executive with extensive experience in building of high-growth business units, trading platforms, and other products for three of the world’s top tier investment banks. Strategic and operational expertise across multiple asset classes and functions. One of my most noteworthy career accomplishments was launching the first unfunded synthetic managed account platform in the industry growing it to $4.5bn+ AUM with 150+ hedge funds. Another major area of expertise is technology and product development. A significant achievement in this area being the creation of a scalable cross-asset technology infrastructure that handled over 100,000 trades per day. Perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of my career has been spearheading the creation and growth of talented teams inspiring high-performance in settings across Private Banking, Asset Management, Fund Derivatives Trading, and Programmatic Trading.
After two years of success serving as the Head of the Nexus platform business, I was entrusted with directing the Passive Currency Overlay (PCO) business with $70bn in hedge notional with a team of FX traders as direct reports supporting restricted markets and freely convertible currencies. Grew revenues by almost 15% in the first year. Upon my promotion, I quickly partnered with IT leadership to create a more technology-centric operating model to transform client experiences in order to support the achievement of ambitious revenue growth goals. One major outcome of the collaboration with the IT department was the successful launch of a new integrated online client portal enabling better client reporting and scalability to meet client needs. From a quality perspective I have motivated our business unit to implement rigorous broker review processes to strengthen liquidity and overall product offerings. Another significant improvement that I made upon starting the position was bringing in new talent and actively built strong partnerships between our business partners in custody, electronic trading, compliance, back office, legal, sales, product and technology to improve collaboration and alignment to deliver best in class solutions.
The Nexus platform business is global in nature with high client visibility. Conceptualized and implemented the Nexus synthetic managed account platform through effective partnership across IT, product development, risk, legal, tax, and trading. We were able to drive innovation and more than double our annual revenue run rate. Beyond technology, I led the creation of a new risk mitigation framework, revamped our global marketing programs, and hired/trained new team members in key roles.
In this role I was the head of dbSelect, OverlaySelect and FX Trading, Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management. I managed a global team of 55 front office traders across four regions and four business lines: private bank sales trading, asset management execution, hedge fund derivatives trading and programmatic FX trading, with a combined annual revenue in excess of $200mm. My time in this position was an extension of the role I held from 2004 to 2012 where I created the vision to launch the dbSelect business unit and the dbOverlay hedging business. Additionally, in this role I built a smart-beta QIS business extension of dbSelect, created a new web-based FX conversion platform, and the Deutsche Asset Management’s FX passive overlay platform (OverlaySelect). Across every division and product I drove strong revenue growth by significantly boosting trading volumes by billions of dollars.
Conceptualised, built and ran dbSelect to be recognised a global pioneer and the first unfunded synthetic managed account platform. Grew the business from the ground-up to more than $4.5bn of AUM and in excess of 150 external hedge fund strategies. I further launching the dbOverlay hedging business and raised $1bn+ in the first year of operation. Both products won awards and generated significant revenue for the business.
After graduating from MIT with my Ph.D. in Robotics and Estimation Theory, I was recruited to serve as a FICC Marketing Strategist in the Securities Division. I was trusted by EMEA governments, corporations, clients, and FX sales teams regarding liability management providing counsel on interest rates, inflation, foreign exchange and commodity risk management, execution strategy, accounting considerations (IAS/FAS), and new product development opportunities.