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: Rory Magrath
Job title: Head of European equity trading
Company: Union Bancaire Privée (UBP)
Rory Magrath was appointed head of European equity trading at private bank UBP in October 2014 with responsibility for institutional equity trading on behalf of the $876 million UBAM Europe Equity fund.
Previously, he was a global multi-asset trader at Citi Investment Management with responsibility for execution for equity, fixed income and ‘balanced’ portfolios.
Old Etonian Magrath spent the majority of his career at Jefferies & Company, working as a pan-European equity trader between July 2008 and September 2012.
He is a graduate of University College London with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business. During his time at UCL, he was placed third in JP Morgan’s rates trading game ‘Fantasy Futures’ in both 2006 and 2007.
Name: Darren Fancourt
Job title: Multi-Asset Trader
Company: Seven Investment Management
Seven Investment Management’s Darren Fancourt oversees a team of two traders working across all asset classes and currencies.
He is responsible for transaction cost analysis of all trades and has developed systems and procedures for straight-through processing (STP) to monitor corporate productivity.
Fancourt joined Seven Investment Management back in August 2010 and has been with the company for five years. He was previously an equities dealer at Brown Shipley for three years between 2007 and 2010.
Fancourt holds the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment Diploma in Investment Operations, the CISI Advanced Certificate in Global Securities Operations, the CISI Level 3 Certificate in Securities and Financial Derivatives and the CISI Level 3 Certificate in Investment Administration.
Name: Adam Batley
Job title: FX Trader
Company: Aviva Investors
Adam Batley is a foreign exchange dealer for London-based Aviva Investors.
After gaining his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Kent in 2005, Batley has continued his professional development with a string of industry qualifications.
He holds the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment Certificate for Investments (Derivatives), the CFA Society Investment Management Certificate and has passed level I of the CFA program.
After graduating he became a foreign exchange dealer and analyst for BNY Melon Overlay Associates. The division is a specialist currency overlay manager, offering currency hedging and alpha strategies to pension funds and other institutional investors across the globe.
As the financial crisis erupted, Batley made the move from the sell-side to the buy-side, joining Aviva Investors in September 2008. As an FX dealer he is responsible for all aspects of FX trading, including execution of spot and forward contracts in developed and emerging market currency pairs, and executing FX options.
Other key aspects of his role include executing trades to hedge SICAV hedged share classes, currency hedging for non-fixed income fund managers and monitoring custodian FX trades in restricted markets.
Name: Sam Spencer
Job title: Head Trader, Americas (London-based)
Company: Investec Asset Management
Investec Asset Management’s Sam Spencer joined the company in the summer of 2012 after five years working on the FICC macro desk at MAN GLG.
Initially he had focussed primarily on equities, but he progressed to all asset classes over the past year.
He says that working in the sovereign bond markets was one of the notable differences to trading with the highly transparent US stock market.
Spencer has mentored interns and become more heavily involved in the trading of emerging market debt in recent months. He says recent career highlights include having executed some sizeable trades in very small, illiquid markets with minimal impact on price.
He describes his style as “not being afraid to go big when the time is right and maintaining close relationships with major trading counterparties.”
Spencer has also been involved in several charity projects outside of the working day, joining colleagues to take part in the Prudential Ride London 100 bike ride last year, raising thousands for charities including ‘Tusk’, an organisation with which Investec has close links.
Name: Stefan Garcia
Job title: Executive director
Company: Source
Exchange Traded Product (ETP) group Source hired Stefan Garcia in 2009 to build its commodities platform from ETF Securities, where he was a founding partner.
Garcia has been key to raising the profile of Source over the past two years and responsible for significant inflows during that time.
A Russian speaker, Garcia moved to London in 2003 when he competed his Master of Business Administration at the London Business School. He also has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Managerial Economics from Brown University.