The Rising Stars: Fancourt, Willis, Chambers, Biesty

Ahead of the Rising Stars event on 16 November, today we feature Seven Investment Management’s Fancourt, Investec Asset Management’s Willis, Chambers from Sequoia Capital Fund Management and Lombard Odier’s Biesty.

By Editors

Darren Fancourt, head of trading, Seven Investment Management

Last year Darren Fancourt featured in our Rising Stars list as a multi-asset trader. Over the year, Fancourt now leads the trading team at Seven Investment Management, managing a team of seven traders.

Over his ten year career, Fancourt has developed an extremely strong background in multi-asset trading and technology, across all products and regions including emerging and frontier markets.

He joined the asset manager in 2010 as a multi-asset trader. During his six years at Seven Investment Management, he was responsible for the transaction cost analysis (TCA) of all trades, while also developing systems and procedures for straight-through processing (STP).

Fancourt explains: “By embracing technology and the new regulatory environment we have moved the trading desk away from a traditional custodial based desk to a full STP model achieving the highest execution quality at the lowest cost and risk to our end-clients.”

He was previously an equities dealer at Borwn Shipley for three years between 2007 and 2010.

Fancourt holds a the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment Diploma in Investment Operations, the CISI Advanced Certificate in Global Securities Operations, and CISI Level 3 Securities and Financial Derivatives.

Richard Willis, dealer, Investec Asset Management

Richard Willis is currently a dealer at Investec Asset Management having joined the firm in March this year. Prior to joining Investec, Willis worked in emerging markets trading at Barclays for over five years.

Willis obtained a degree in finance and economics from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. After his graduation, he got a job at Absa Capital in Johannesburg, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Barclays Africa Group.

At Absa Capital, Willis traded sub-Saharan African domestic bonds and foreign exchange. He worked at Absa for over four years before moving to London to join Barclays Capital on the emerging markets trading desk.

Daniel Chambers, head of trading, Sequoia Capital Fund Management

Daniel Chambers joined Sequoia Capital Fund Management (SCFM), a UK-based multi-asset alternative investment trading firm, in 2013, serving as head of its back-office.

After just four months Chambers responsibilities grew, becoming its head of trading in October 2013. From May 2014, Chambers relinquished his back-office role as he looked to focus solely on the trading desk.

Chambers, who is also a speaker in Mandarin, is now responsible for all aspects of trading within the company, with a focus on G10 FX spot trading.  Nearly all of SCFM’s trading is executed electronically, with an emphasis on quantitative strategies.

Adrian Biesty, head of trading, Lombard Odier Investment Managers

Adrian Biesty joined Lombard Odier Investment Managers in September 2015 to head up trading for the firm. His career began at Brewin Dolphin in 2001 as a senior equity and fixed income trader, before he joined JP Morgan Chase in London with a similar role.

By 2003, Biesty had moved to Louis Capital in a more senior role. He was in charge of the company’s equity trading and market making businesses. He spent over seven years at Louis Capital before being poached by Barclays to become director of global dealing and sales trading. Four years later, Biesty joined Lombard Odier as its head of trading.

He holds Securities Institute certificates in derivatives, securities and financial regulation and is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI). He also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Heriot-Watt University.

In his spare time, Biesty enjoys car track days and is a private pilot! He is also a musician and enjoys snowboarding, clay and game shooting and golf.

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