Where do you work?
I work with Colt Technology as a sales specialist in capital markets. Typically, I work with a buy-side client such as a bank, and a sell-side client such as a hedge fund, pension fund, or insurance company. I sell exchange market data so that clients can start trading, discount financial trades, or run their own business model. We also provide physical networks. That's a different area from my previous jobs at Bloomberg and Merrill Lynch which was mainly dealing with after-market data trading svstems. Now I am involved a little bit more with the network side and the physical cloud. In the old days the buy-side and sell-side would have to spend money on a market data centre, with perhaps hundreds of servers, but now they are moving towards the cloud they can save a lot of resources.
I also focus on high-frequency trading clients. These companies put their servers very close to exchange trading rooms. For example, in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange they have their trading engine located at the TKO data center. We will help build the infrastructure so they can connect to the trading engine directly and these high frequency clients take advantage of the speed to beat the market.
What was your first job?
That was at ABCO Inc. in Toronto working as a Price Analyst. ABCO did not give me too much experience of the financial world but it did give me direction and help me come to an understanding of what kind of job
I might like to aim for. When I got back to Hong Kong I started from zero but at least I had found my interest, so then I felt motivated to work harder and catch up
How important is it to change jobs?
Let me answer this by giving you a bit of background on the structure of companies in the financial sector.
Typically, there's a back office, that looks after operations, more routine jobs, and tends to follow procedures. Then there's a middle office which is more IT-based, and could be a stepping stone to the front office. Lastly, the front office is more client-facing, exchange-facing, and more to do with trading. This is where a lot of people want to start out. But, if you don't have a perfect GPA, or connections, or simply good luck, it's quite hard to land a front-line position when you graduate. That doesn't mean that you are a loser. For me, firstly I had to find my interest and secondly. I needed to build up experience.
So, collecting various experiences in different companies is very important. That is why my CV might look a bit jumpy.
Where did you start?
I started with the back office in operations. There's a common perception that if you start in the back office you will stay there forever. Based on my experience that is not true. You get your experience first, and then you can start to move towards - I wouldn’t say jump even
- move towards the middle office. For me, that's more like the IT skills set which I got from Société Générale (SocGen) the French investment bank. Then, in my next job at Merrill Lynch I achieved one of my goals which was to work on the electronic trading desk, mainly covering futures. Then I moved to Bloomberg where I experienced a wider client base and got experience beyond futures to equities, bonds, and so on, and I got to know more about high frequency trading.
How did you benefit from being educated in Toronto?
I was almost ten years in Toronto as I went there for both high school and university. It certainly helps, especially when you are joining an international company. You feel the benefit of that cultural backaround, and that's a common starting point to talk about things. In terms of educational content, these days you have to be independent in research wherever you are, so there's not such a big difference between say Hong Kong and Canada. Being in university gives you logical thinking and finding your own way to do research. But more important is job experience.
How useful was the MSc in Financial Engineering at CityU?
The MSc gave me a much broader knowledge in the financial area. When I was in the University of Toronto the emphasis was on logical thinking, math, modelling, and so on. But when I started my iob in the financial world. I found out there were so man varieties of financial knowledge. The MSc helped consolidate and broaden that experience.
Maybe 30% of textbook knowledge will be useful when you start work in, say, a bank. Each of the banks or trading institutions will have their own platform, systems, and products. The school can't teach that.
The product taught at school may be quite general.
Later you will need to learn the subsets of the product, that people are using to trade in the real world. Lastly, schools may give you the basic IT technology, but the actual trading technology, how the bank builds its server, how it is connected to market data, how it sends orders to the exchange, and how the trades are executed is learned on the job. There are something like 60 to 90 exchanges in the world, each with thousands of products.
The CityU MSc gave me a solid product knowledge, for example, in derivatives which are very complex, and futures and options which are very popular. Later you learn how to enhance the system for a particular product. Another reason I took this programme was that there was a course where professionals were invited to share their experience, and this I found very valuable. That’s why I try to volunteer now, in my turn, to offer professional sessions and share as much as I can.
So, City helped open up a wider world for you?
Yes, after graduating I finally got into the front office area when I joined Meryll. Many students spend a lot of time taking Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), but I didn't do that. You need to do the course which will give you the foundational knowledge for your target specialism. CFA is for entering firms where you might be a portfolio manager, or a specialist in a particular area, or an accountant.
Is Al affecting your work area?
There's a lot of perception out there that Al is taking jobs from humans. Yes and no. In the banking sector the technology is quite advanced. That helps us to simplify procedures, and facilitate operations in trading. But I don't see a lot of job cutting. There are more programmers in demand. The greater your IT skills set, the more chance you have of getting a job.
Do you still work in the office?
Yes, it's more effective when we meet the client face-to-face, and more casual than talking to them on Zoom or on the phone. I would say about 70% of the time we need to go out to meet the client and go back to the office but 30% of the time would be more effective working from home, things like internal meetings, daily jobs, etc. The IT team may work from home four days a week but for client - facing teams you spend more time at the office or meeting face-to-face.
Are you a leader or a team player?
In the financial area, for the first 3 to 5 years, you're got to be a good team player. Then you can move forward and either choose to be a leader or take a specialist role. There's so many different types of financial technologies and products. You need to decide your talents and interests. If you want that leader role of course you need leadership experience, and you won't need to be very technical. If you're heading for a specialist role you focus on that area.
Then the leader will find you because they have their own team. If they have a high frequency trading client they will say "Heh Jeff, we need your help."
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I will probably stay in the product specialties area and move into new specialisms. Once I feel l've learned enough in finance I may try to get back to school to share some experience. I help to recruit trainees. I see so many different students approach the beginnings of their career in the wrong direction. I see people who spend four years on school and get 3.8 GPA, but four minutes on their CV. It's difficult perhaps to teach, but based on my experience I hope I will be able to show how to use time more efficiently.
