Paul Greer, senior trader global EM debt, Fidelity International
Few of our rising stars have quite such extensive experience in their field as Paul Greer who has spent much of the past 15 years focusing on trading emerging markets debt, most recently with asset management giant Fidelity.
Greer graduated in 2001 from Queen’s University Belfast with a degree in electrical and electronic engineering, moving straight into his first role as principal deal for the global rates trading group at Bank of Ireland.
Five years later he moved into a specialism that he has stuck with since, trading global emerging markets debt for US insurance firm AIG in its investment management unit. When that was spun off from AIG in 2010 as PineBridge Investments, Greer stayed on as head of trading for EMEA but continued to specialise in trading emerging market sovereign and local debt, as well as FX. He also had responsibility for all fixed income and listed equity trading across the EMEA region.
Then, in 2012, he moved to his current home at Fidelity, where is has been a senior trader for global emerging markets debt for over four years. Greer says he has a strong focus on relative value trading strategies in Central and Easter Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Latin American bond and FX markets, bringing in his knowledge of markets, macro economics and politics to help inform trading decisions and aid in portfolio strategy and execution.
Jan Mark Van Mill, co-head of trading, APG Asset Management
Jan Mark Van Mill has worked at APG, the asset management arm of Dutch pension fund APB, for his whole 16 year career.
Starting at a trainee on the trading desk as an equity execution analyst, he later became a trader in equities and equity derivatives.
In 2003, he became part of the fund management team, looking after its commodities portfolio and helping it grow its assets under management from one billion euros to 10 billion euros. However, after two years Van Mill came to the realisation that he wanted to be in trading.
“It gave me a good view of both sides of the trading firm – with experience in both trade and execution and in fund management. After a time, I concluded I preferred trading. I feel trading is 80% about action and 20% research, whereas fund management is the other way round. I liked the interaction with banks and the thrill of deal making,” he says.
After moving back to the trading desk as a senior trader, Van Mill expanded his reach by also trading in commodities and long-only rate derivatives markets for its pension fund clients. Following the financial crisis, he was tasked to manage its short trading strategy. “The company needed more senior traders on the short-side of the trade with knowledge of post-trade processes,” he explains.
Then in 2010 he was named co-head of trading, becoming responsible for all trading with over 450 billion euros in assets under management for Dutch pension funds.
It was at this time that Van Mill led the team’s expansion into multi-asset, expanding into FX, futures, credit and fixed income derivatives.
“We wanted to build out the trading desk and become responsible for implementing new trading strategies. We gradually built it out to become a fully multi-asset trading desk,” he says.
He sees the future of the trading desk being increasingly influenced by the electronification of markets. “It is moving from equities and into FX, futures, fixed income where electronic execution is rapidly evolving. With banks being less able to provide liquidity, the structure of markets is changing and will be in constant flux.
“I hope to see more end-to-end user trading through electronic platforms. This will be extremely important in fixed income and repo trading.”
Stuart Patterson, multi-asset trader, Tesco Pension Investment
Stuart Patterson represents the first trader from a pension fund to feature in our Rising Stars list. Patterson joined Tesco Pension Investment, which holds around £9 billion in assets for Tesco’s employees, in June 2015 as a multi-asset trader.
Patterson is no stranger to swimming with the sharks, both metaphorically in the trading world and figuratively, being a keen scuba diver and shark diver.
He works with a team of fund managers, trading across all asset classes with a focus on fixed income markets and active cash management for the pension fund.
Patterson learnt his craft at Cazenove Capital Management, the now wealth management business of Schroders.
He joined the company in 2004 as a fund administrator. He got his first experience at trading in 2007, being promoted to the fast-paced fixed income and FX dealing desk, working alongside five traders for its institutional funds and private clients. In 2014 he moved to the multi-asset trading desk, executing across equity, fixed income and FX markets.
Patterson holds a degree from the University of East London in Psychology.
Matthew Burgess, head of equity investment screening and risk optimisation, Royal London Asset Management
Matthew Burgess has been on the sell-side for much of his career but joined Royal London in May 2016 after more than five and a half years with Citi group.
His new role is more of a top-down position where he is working alongside portfolio managers on optimisation and screening to enable them to take some shorter term macro bets.
Over the coming months, Burgess anticipates that his role will develop further as RLAM currently sees some gaps in the product lines between active and passive.
He explains: “The original mandate that I spoke to the CIO about… before I joined was lower spec than the job I was eventually hired to do. I am definitely more of a strategist than a pure quant guy. In the mid-term, I will be managing something that is in the middle of passive and active, then longer term it will be tracking portfolios with an overlay of systematic alpha.”
Burgess has two young children but still finds time for plenty of sport. He plays competitive golf and is a keen footballer, having once played in Aston Villa’s School for Excellence. He is a graduate of Southampton University in Management Sciences and is 37 years old.