Over the summer, The TRADE has been gathering nominations to compile a list of the 40 individuals under the age of 40 that are most likely to enjoy notable career advancement in the coming years.
The list of 40 was drawn up following extensive market research with industry leaders on the sell-side and buy-side and verified with interviews with employers and individuals to evaluate their credentials.
To qualify for consideration, individuals had to be aged under 40 years of age as at 31 December 2015 and be working in a trading function at an asset manager, wealth manager, stockbroker, technology group, or life company.
Consideration was given to each individual’s day-to-day role in the business, career progression to date and involvement in industry initiatives.
Further credit was awarded for commendable extra-curricular activities such as examples of volunteer or mentoring work or for academic success in a professional examination scheme.
All those who made the list must be based in Europe, although they can trade assets globally.
After a lengthy judging process, our panel considered the following 40 people to be worthy of recognition.
Name: James Hathaway
Job title: Trader
Company: First State Investments
James Hathaway has spent 14 years working at major market players and building his experience in trading, mainly in the credit markets.
Beginning his career at RBC Capital Markets, he spent four years working up to the role of vice president, credit trading, before taking a similar role at Morgan Stanley.
For almost three years, Hathaway was involved in market making for European investment grade and cross over credit default swaps.
In June 2008 he then made the move to GFI Group as a European credit derivatives broker.
In his two years at AXA, Hathaway focused on global emerging markets trading credit and rates. At the time of writing Hathaway was on gardening leave in preparation for his move to First State.
Hathaway also holds a BSc in Chemistry and Economics from the University of Durham.
Name: Tim Marchant
Job title: Co-founder and COO
Company: Cardwell Investment Technologies
Tim Marchant, co-founder and COO, Cardwell Investment Technologies
Cardwell Investment Technologies is a short-term, systematic, uncorrelated managed futures program co-founded by Tim Marchant and Barnaby Cardwell in 2007.
Marchant brought over a decade of experience in the financial markets with him to the firm, which included trading his own capital under the mentorship of Cardwell before co-founding the firm in in August 2007.
At Cardwell, Marchant manages operations, trading strategy development and road shows to grow fund asset under management. He also oversaw FCA and NFA registration and onboarding to multiple platforms.
Prior to Cardwell, Marchant was a proprietary trader at ABM Futures for almost two years, gaining experience in trading a wide variety of liquid futures contracts outright and spreads.
Marchant began his career at Bloomberg, where he progressed from analytics to sales specialising in technical analysis.
Name: Cindy Chan
Job title: Risk specialist
Company: N/A
Tipped as one of the “gifted young minds” in risk and asset allocation analysis, former sell-sider Cindy Chan is poised to make a return to the City in the coming months.
Chan took a career break last year after six years as head of investment risk for the Universities Superannuation Scheme. Her nomination is in recognition of her considerable knowledge built from her work on both sides of The Street.
Back in 2002, she worked as a research analyst for Deutsche Bank working on the programme trading and equity derivatives research team – a role she held for just over two years before joining Fortis as a senior quant analysis in 2005.
At USS, she had a huge mandate, with responsibility for managing risk for £31.5 billion in assets – one of the UK’s largest pension schemes. She was also previously a quant analyst for the Shell Pensions scheme.
Chan has a Master of Science in Operational Research from the London School of Economics and a Master of Science in Information Processing and Neural Networks from Kings College.
Name: Ben Thompson
Job title: Trader
Company: Bluebay Asset Management
Bluebay’s Ben Thompson joined the team back in January 2014 and handles emerging markets local currency rates and FX trades.
He joined from Ashmore, where his focus was on emerging markets credit, both sovereign and corporate.
Thompson started his career at Northern Rock, which he joined back in 2003. He worked at the ill-fated lender for four years working across wholesale funding, liquidity management and risk management.
He left Northern Rock in August 2007 to join the Leeds Building Society as a treasury dealer where he staid until June 2010.
Thompson is a graduate of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with a Master of Arts in Finance and financial Management Services. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Managerial Economics.
Name: Derek Flynn
Job title: Senior equity trader
Company: BlueCrest Capital Management
Described ‘outstanding’ by his peers, Derek Flynn joined BlueCrest Capital Management as the senior equity trader in May 2013, trading predominantly for the BlueCrest Equities Fund.
He was previously working at Nomura on the centralised dealing desk in London. He worked as a trade floor support IT analyst at Lehman Brothers between September 2007 and February 2012.
Flynn also worked in a trading floor support role at Nomura in the three years before joining Lehman Brothers.
He is a graduate of the University of Limerick with a bachelors degree in Computer Systems, Systems Analysis, Database Design and Programming, which he completed in 2007.