October 20, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, Anthony speaks with Kate Hill, Global Head of Trading at Aviva Investors, about her three-decade career spanning Citi, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, and Aviva.
Kate shares what it was like stepping onto the trading floor for the first time, how major market events shaped her path, and the cultural differences she experienced across leading global institutions. She also reflects on transitioning into leadership, balancing personal challenges with career decisions, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
It’s a candid conversation packed with advice for students and early-career professionals - from resilience and adaptability to the skills that will define the future of trading as technology transforms finance.
(00:00) Trading Intro & Career Journey
(02:57) First Impressions on the Floor
(07:23) Intersection of Markets & Politics
(08:48) Key Market Events & Decisions
(11:47) Reality of Dynamic Markets
(13:14) The Value of Experience
(19:25) Cultural Differences in Finance
(22:43) Moving into Leadership
(26:53) Personal Challenges & Career Choices
(34:46) Asset Management vs Sell-Side
(37:00) Advice for Aspiring Professionals
(41:15) Future of Trading & Tech
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to this careerInsight session where I am
joined by Kate Hill, the Global Head of Trading at in Viva
Investors to explore a 30 year career across City, Morgan
Stanley and HSBC. We're going to talk about
stepping onto the trading floor for the first time.
So Kate, I'm going to take you back to, I think it's 1994 at
(00:20):
home, which I think a lot of people will be interested to
know what was the trading floor like back then to navigating
pivotal market moments. I know you've seen more than a
few cultural differences betweentop institutions and how
technology is reshaping trading,which I know is something you
are very involved in. We'll also dive into some career
advice for students and what excites the most about the
(00:43):
future of markets. So Kate, welcome.
So great to be having this conversation.
Thank you. Thanks very much for having me.
Perhaps just to kick things off,someone kind of hears the
terminology of the global head of trading and also Aviva
Investors. So what?
What is that role and who are Aviva?
(01:05):
So Aviva Investors is the fund management arm of Aviva as in
the large UK based insurer. We have about £246 billion and
management in a variety of strategies across fixed income
and equities. And the role of global Head of
(01:28):
Trading, I guess, is to manage and oversee the trading teams
that trade for and on behalf of the portfolio managers
responsible for managing those assets.
So we're a team of about 30 people.
We have an office in Singapore, one in Toronto and the majority
(01:52):
of my teams based in London and each of those, so the team is,
is broadly split into smaller teams of asset class specialists
that focus on rates, credit, equities and so on.
OK, great stuff. Good to get the the context and
(02:12):
I remember when we met probably like a year ago or so.
I think one of the things I, I probed you for and found out
about your history was when you started.
And I was particularly interested because you started
back at City on an internship in1994.
And one of the events we met at was specifically around women in
(02:33):
markets as well. And I just kind of had that
question of like what was the trading floor like when you went
on it for the very first time going all the way back to that
internship at City? Well, that is a very long time
ago, so I guess probably I should put that into context.
(02:55):
So a summer internship was obviously is very, very
commonplace now and most of the large firms do it.
But at the time I was really just looking for relevant work
experience. I had told my father that I had
lined something up for the summer and I was working on it
(03:19):
and in essence only actually applied for the Citibank summer
internship program. There was no Plan B and I didn't
really know or understand what Iwas applying for.
It was a world's tiniest ad in acareer bulletin and it said send
(03:40):
a standard application form to the following address and mark
which of these you would be interested in joining.
It was corporate finance, was mergers and acquisitions,
shipping and sales and trading. I knew nothing about any of
those but I thought sales and trading seemed to sound the most
(04:02):
interesting. So I ticked that box and sent
off my application form. Didn't hear anything which was
bad and I phoned and phoned and phoned and I think her name was
Victoria, if I remember rightly,in HR who I spoke to pretty much
every week asking, you know, is there any chance of an
(04:23):
interview. And eventually she caved and I
got my interview and then I got invited down to to join them for
the summer in sales and trading.The Citibank office was actually
at the top of the Strand, so notin the City or in Canary Wharf,
and is a fairly unassuming building.
(04:43):
And the trading floor by modern standards was tiny, not purpose
built in any way. And I'd never seen anything like
it in my life. It was, you know, a room, a very
noisy room with desks quite close together, but a lot of
screens and not flat screens, big fat chunky screens like old
(05:06):
school television. And I just thought, what are all
these people doing? You know, why is it so noisy?
And I honestly, I think probablymy, one of my first observations
is it didn't look like a proper job in the sense that it just
seemed to be more fun than work.And so it so it proved to be the
(05:31):
case. So in terms of what was it like,
most people were quite young, I would say.
You know, that was one of my observations.
And of course, most, most of them were men, but I wasn't
really conscious of that. I think in 1994 it was kind of
(05:52):
as I expected it to be, so to speak.
So, But yeah, I, I knew pretty much within hours of walking
into that room that that it was probably going to be a fantastic
summer and. Then can I just go back to you
saw that ad, so at the moment you you're picking these
specific finance related roles, but where did finance come from
(06:15):
to start with? So why weren't you looking at
all other types of jobs? What led you to that?
Oh, no. So.
So if I go way back when I was, I suppose, deciding what to do
at university, I had a choice between fine art and something
more, you know, related to economics and politics.
(06:37):
So I chose to do a economics andpolitics degree at Newcastle and
that's where the sort of financeinterests came from definitely,
you know, free market economics,that sort of thing I thought was
incredibly interesting. And I specifically chose to read
economics and politics because Ididn't think those two could be
(06:58):
split. So those, you know, they're, you
know, inextricably linked if youlike.
So that's why we ended up in in finance because that's what I
was reading at university. On that point, do you think it's
more linked now than it was has been from when you started your
career on that point on the intersection of finance and
(07:20):
economics and politics? That's a that's a really
interesting question. So I think yes, the two are very
much linked, but I think marketsare quite a strange beast in the
sense that they don't always react to what you think they're
going to react to. So, you know, geopolitical risk
(07:42):
comes, you know, into the fray and out again, you know, a bit
like the tide. So it's not always, you know,
my, my sort of moral compass, ifyou like, is always a little bit
shocked that they don't react tovarious political issues.
But that's been the case for thelast 30 years and I don't
(08:04):
envisage it'll it'll change for the next 30 to be fair.
Yeah. And, and looking at those those
30 years, then I mean, one of mynext questions was going to be,
you know, some of the, the pivotal moments, the, the mark.
So there's two sides. There's market events because
the recent ones that people willrefresh in mind, there's the
COVID, there's the European debtcrisis, there's the financial
(08:26):
crisis. There's others prior to my
career as well, very meaningful ones that you would have been
part of, so on the market side, but also on the career moves and
some personal decisions. So when you reflect back on
those 30 years, what are some ofthose market events and some of
those more, more personal decisions that stick out to you?
(08:48):
Cross market events, I think, you know, from a from a trading
perspective, market events that sort of really stick out are the
ones that have, yeah, a very significant impact on what I
would describe as a proper functioning of markets.
(09:09):
You know, So normal what you know, tail risk events that
aren't, you know, where your ability to trade and execute is,
is severely challenged. You know, those are the probably
the ones that that stick out themost.
Probably the first one's probably, you know, the emerging
(09:32):
market crisis across Asia, whichyou know, I which now of course
we, we're, we're very familiar with trading restricted
currencies. But of course there was a period
before that all happened where some of those currencies were
more freely tradeable. That was probably the first sort
of shock. And then I suppose the global
(09:55):
financial crisis, obviously we talk about that as it as it's a
point in time event, but it wasn't really a point in time.
It was more of a, a series of, of smaller catastrophes that
ultimately led to a very, very big disruption in markets.
And I remember one clearly, which was when we had that
(10:17):
enormous move in Kiwi yen and the carry trade started to
unwind. And now that sticks out because
I got married and for, for various reasons, I've got
married on the weekend and I wasn't able to take my honeymoon
(10:37):
immediately because we had to make sure that desk was covered.
And obviously in that market environment, that was super
important. So I worked for a week after I
was married. And in that week I think I'd,
I'd never worked as hard my entire life.
The phone just rang and rang, rang and rang and we just dealt
(10:58):
and dealt and dealt and dealt. I mean, it's so volatile and so
crazy. And then I went on honeymoon and
that sticks in my mind because all I did was sleep.
And then first I was, I was in alovely hotel on the Amalfi Coast
sleeping a lot because I was, I was so, so exhausted from it.
(11:21):
So yeah, that's that's the one that sticks in my mind.
Question on that. When you're in the middle of one
of those periods like that week you described, is it just kind
of survival instinct and you're just running on pure energy at
that point? Like what, what does that
actually like? Because when people, especially
young people, hear that like a whole week of intensity, like
(11:42):
what does that? What's that actually like and
how do you actually get through that?
I don't. You don't really get the, you
don't really, it's not a decision, right.
So in the sense that at the timeI was an FX salesperson at HSBC
and you, you have a sort of a split mandate.
(12:03):
You have a responsibility to your clients and looking after
their best best interests and you have a responsibility to all
the traders that you work with. So it's, it's not an option,
it's not optional. You have, you have to fulfill
your role to the best of your abilities in, in, in, in that
(12:25):
space. And to be fair, if that's if
that's not something that you like doing or it kind of, you
know, fills you with fear, then you're probably in the wrong
job. And arguably you would have
realized that, you know, many, many months in advance of a a
financial crisis of that scale. It's, you know, it's just so
(12:50):
overwhelming, I guess, you know,yeah.
And so when COVID happened, how did COVID compare and contrast?
And when something like COVID happens and you have that big
market disruption, having seen several other market
disruptions, do you feel any better prepared with that
(13:11):
experience? Yes, I think so.
I mean, I think a very wise person wants describe the carry
trade to me as picking pennies up in front of the steamroller.
And if you've it's interesting, it's it's very interesting
people's perspective depending on when they join markets as to,
(13:34):
you know, how shocked they are by these type of tail risk
events. And the argument would be from a
COVID perspective that was very different in terms of the the
factors that were driving markets, but certainly not
shocked from the reaction function necessarily where.
(13:54):
And I think if you'd have just joined financial, the financial
service industry, that would have been a wow.
You know, and I think certainly from my perspective, at that
point, my predecessor had announced her retirement.
I was kind of getting over the shock of of her leaving because
(14:17):
she was a very, very dear friendof mine.
And also the news that I was going to do her role when COVID
sort of happened. So she actually left the week
that we removed ourselves from the office.
So I was running around, you know, making sure people were
(14:37):
able to work from home, you know, sorting out screens and so
forth. So again, very similar to that
week after I got married, didn'treally have time to think a lot
about what was actually happening.
It's only when you you get a moment to stop and and reflect
back do you realize, oh, wow, OK, that was that was pretty
(15:01):
big. But in the moment, I think
you're so focused on on what you're doing.
Is there ever any points then when you have say new early
careers people working within your team who are seeing like
COVID is their baseline of like they start that's their
experience, their early career. Do they look to you to to have
(15:23):
these sort of conversations then?
Or is it more driven out of dataanalytics these days to draw
these conclusions and for them to learn how much of it is a
quantitative versus qualitative kind of assessment when these
early careers people are talkingto Someone Like You all?
Right. So that's interesting.
So, you know, if I reflect back on some of my role, so, you
(15:50):
know, one of the reasons why FX salespeople started really early
was to give themselves, I suppose, half an hour, 40
minutes advantage on their clients.
So they could effectively prepare what's what was
laughably described as a morningrundown, right?
(16:13):
Where you would have to write your own little commentary on
what has happened in, you know, New York and and Asia and then
be in a position to phone your client, actually speak to them
and and talk about market events.
And you know, one of the reasonsthat you could do that is
(16:35):
obviously you were drawing at Citibank.
We were drawing from all of the local offices plus the news
channels that we had access to. But there was a a real
difference in terms of the news and information that the large
bank had access to versus the rest of the industry.
(16:56):
So you were able to add add value really quite simply
because your information was better than the next chat.
Now, of course, the world is very, very different and we're
probably in a, you know, as close to perfect information as
you can get. So there's nothing really from a
salesperson's perspective that they can add or tell a fund
(17:21):
management client first thing inthe morning other than, you
know, perhaps some of their thoughts on flows they've seen
and kind activity and and and soforth.
So you can imagine in terms of the data that's being collected,
I mean that's just fascinating and the processing and so forth
that goes on when you know, you look back at a different market
(17:46):
environment, correlations and and and so forth.
So that I think that's changed meaningfully over over a 30 year
period. And of course, you've, you know,
added on top of that, my memory fails me, but there was an
incident, I think in Indonesia in the early 90s.
(18:08):
And I was able to the, we knew it was bad because we could see
smoke and fire in the city from our local office.
And I was able to tell one of myclients who had a position
right. But now, of course, that that
would be live streamed on some form of social media.
So even that local edge has gone.
(18:33):
So it's a very, very different world I think for for new people
joining the industry to the one I I joined 30 years ago.
OK. Well, that, that kind of leads
beyond then to talk a little bitabout you've, you've worked
across some of the biggest institutions and I think a lot
(18:53):
of people forming these ideas about which firm they might want
to work for as well as the role.I know you City, Morgan Stanley,
HSBC in your current role. Just wondered what were some of
the cultural differences becausethere's some more international
focus, there's some more pureplay U.S. investment bank,
there's where you're at at the moment, a more UK centric.
(19:15):
So cultural operational differences between those firms
and and how did they individually impact the growth
of your career? That's a good question.
I, I suppose I was pretty lucky in that I started at Citibank,
which at the time was the dominant force in global foreign
(19:35):
exchange, huge net network, you know, and really at the top of
its game for, for a number of years.
But probably the biggest take away, I think for anyone new to
the industry is to understand that these large firms do have a
culture. It's I think when you're, you're
(19:56):
at university, it's quite hard to get your head round.
Well, what do you mean? What, what do you mean by that?
There is a, and there are, and Iwould say at large global banks,
the differences are really, really subtle.
But it is worth taking your timetalking to as many people as you
(20:17):
you can possibly find that work or have worked at that
institution to kind of get a feel for.
You know, is that, is that the sort of place where I would
where I would thrive? Is that the sort of environment
that I would do well in? You have to do your due
diligence, you really do. And there's no, there's no,
(20:37):
there's no way around that. So the more effort you put in
that, the better. But the other thing is, I would
say that those it's, it's, it's,it's not a static journey in the
sense that the culture of those large institutions, albeit it
changes slowly, it does change. So you know, the HSBC of 30
(20:59):
years ago, it's not the same as the HSBC today.
I would say the environment thatI really, really enjoyed working
in. And I think it was probably
because it was sort of I was at the right stage of my career
with some great people. Was it Morgan Stanley?
(21:22):
It was a really entrepreneurial type environment.
You were, it was very clear whatyour objectives were as a
salesperson and you were held accountable to achieving those
objectives. And I would say the second thing
was the PNL system between salesand trading was the best I
worked under. It was really collegiate was
(21:46):
very much about shared goals. So the whilst the roles and
responsibilities of sales and trading were different, you
definitely felt like you were working together as a team.
So that was a fun, that was a fun place to work.
But it, I think it shows you, you know, regardless of where
(22:11):
you're working, if you've got clear objectives and there's
some transparency around, you know, how your performance is
judged, then you're probably going to, to, to be in the best
place possible to succeed. In your current role, then how
does it differentiate when you become a leadership position?
(22:32):
So when you're a global head of trading compared to some of
these earlier roles that you had, like, how does your
day-to-day shift and what's thatprocess or journey like?
OK, that's, that's interesting because the first thing is that
despite being called the global head of trading, I don't trade
myself. I think at some point in your,
(22:53):
in your career, you, you're you're ready to step back from
that. So I, I, I was, and to focus on
other things. Now, for some people that would,
that would mean that the, that that's makes my job incredibly
unappealing. And I certainly have team
(23:13):
leaders that, that work with me that are, are still very much
focused on trading and they lovetrading.
And, you know, they, they, whilst they're happy to manage a
smaller team, my role probably doesn't excite them as much.
But I guess one of the things, so the first thing, the most
important thing is to actually manage the team, hopefully to,
(23:35):
to achieve their objectives and the objectives of the firm.
But it's more about the people side of things in the sense of
there's always something going on, whether that be, you know,
babies, weddings, you know, caring for elderly parents.
So there's a whole sort of people management and that's,
(23:56):
that's getting that right is a huge responsibility and, and
something that I love doing. It also means hiring individuals
and and I guess trying to build the team for not only the needs
of the business now, but where we think the business is going.
The other thing is Reg, you know, regulation, all of the
(24:19):
regulatory obligations that we have obviously to deliver best
execution for and on behalf of our clients, but Reg everywhere.
So Reg regulation that impacts our counterparties.
So SACA, GSIB, you know, all of these sort of post global
(24:39):
financial changes that have beenmade with respect to banks,
balance sheets, they can have animpact on liquidity and and so
forth. So, so people Reg and I guess
the third thing is managing I guess for the technology needs
of the desk now, but also where it might be in the next, you
(25:01):
know, 3-4, five years. So having a think around how the
needs of Aviva Investors, clients might change and making
sure that we're ready for that. I guess those are the three.
Those are the three big day-to-day functions, which
sadly no longer includes actually trading myself.
(25:25):
Did do you ever miss that? Then that like that that that
feeling the picking up some pennies in front of the
steamroller? Do you ever go what?
Yeah, but I don't think, I mean,I've occasionally volunteered,
but no one that that works with me think it thinks it's a great
idea. It was a bit like, you know, it
(25:47):
would be a bit like letting yourgranddad loose, you know?
It's not, it's, it's, it's, it'snot for me.
I'm, I, I recognize that the, myskill set is very much out of
date. So I'll leave that to people
that are more highly trained than I've been.
Yeah, you're too, too modest. I know that managing people is
(26:10):
probably the ultimate challenge,which is your full time thing
now. So with when I was looking
through your, you know, doing a bit of LinkedIn investigation,
looking through your kind of career history, I did, I did
notice that there was a formal leave of absence through your
career. And I was just kind of
interested to know the fact thatyou're in the role that you're
(26:33):
at now, which assuming is the first senior seat, but it did
include a gap there. I just wondered like what was
the decision that shaped that, that move and how did that work?
How did it come about and and a little bit more understanding
about that. Yeah, sure.
So that wasn't a planned leave of absence, that that was as a
(26:58):
consequence of circumstance. So what happened, very sadly, my
husband was diagnosed with stage4 bowel cancer and my son was, I
think 2/2 and 1/2 at the time. And it's the sort of news that
(27:19):
hits you like a train. And at the time, the doctors
told us that he was inoperable and incurable.
And you know, it's the classic question, how long have you got?
And the chap said six months. So it took a while for that news
(27:41):
to sink in. And it's going to sound crazy,
but at the time I did actually carry on working for a bit.
And that's that seems strange when I look back now, it's like,
that's ridiculous. But when you're, I suppose that
(28:03):
sort of news hits you, you, you cling to the familiar, you cling
to the routine and you kind of want to be normal.
You just, you know, that the, the size of the elephant in the
room is so enormous that actually, you know, putting 1
foot in front of the other and going in and out of the office
(28:26):
offered a degree of, of comfort.And in the end, within a, within
a month or so, it became obviousthat that was a really bad
decision for everyone. And it was the decision to leave
HSBCI made in about 30 seconds. And I phoned my husband and I
(28:50):
said, oh, oh, just say no, I'm just, I've just resigned.
I'll see you later. I didn't even think about it.
Well, OK, what do you want for tea?
And that was it, because it seemed such the right thing to
do. As it turned out, I had two
fantastic bosses at the time whoagreed that I would take a leave
(29:15):
of absence for, you know, indeterminate amount of time so
that I would have the security of, of a role at some point back
at HSBC, which was a very generous and fantastic thing for
them to offer me. So I left and we had about, I
(29:41):
suppose, 12 months together trying to get in better.
We, we never really gave up on, on trying to cure the incurable,
incurable, but in the end he lost his battle and died in
January 2013. So that's why there's a leave of
(30:04):
absence. I'm very grateful for HSBC to
allowing me to effectively not resign and and just be away for
that period of time. Well, well, thank you for
sharing that. I mean, that's definitely a huge
event to happen. So, so from going back to work
(30:28):
then, I mean, where's your head at after a life situation like
that? I mean, are you, did it make you
reconsider from a career perspective?
Like what do I want to do now? Or are you, is it, is it the
natural default to go back to asyou said at the initial news
outbreak where you're like just need to get back to one foot in
(30:50):
front of the other and go to what I know and familiarity is
get you back on the horse again?Yeah, I think so.
So I think it kind of there's, there's if I look back on that,
there's no way that that doesn'timpact your perspective on life.
You know, we certainly from frommy perspective, it changed.
(31:16):
We didn't change my priorities, but it kind of put everything
into sort of sharp relief. So my primary purpose, well,
obviously I was, I was, I'm now at that point, I was a single
parent, not planned on being a single parent.
And I still wanted to, you know,look after my son to the best of
(31:37):
my abilities and you know that that becomes your number one
priority. So I decided to go back to work.
I went back to HSBC initially again, I think it was, it felt
like the right thing to do. It was familiar.
(31:59):
I knew everyone, everyone knew me.
You know, I didn't have to explain or go through everything
and it, you know, it just, it just felt like the right thing
to do. I think in hindsight, if I'd
have been a bit braver and a bitmore focused on the longer term,
(32:20):
I maybe would have taken more time to think about what I
really wanted to do. And I might have, you know, if I
ever looking back on that decision, I probably went back
to work a bit too soon, probablyshould have taken, you know, a
bit more time to think about do I really want to go back to a
(32:43):
bank or do I want to do something different?
You know, I think if I'd have taken a bit more of a step back,
I would have ended up at an asset manager sooner than it
actually took to happen. And I think the decision to join
Aviva Investors was was really, really good one.
It also gave me a little bit of flexibility as a single parent.
(33:05):
So I had this is pre COVID, which was fantastic, actually
had one day a week the ability to work from home and I never
really used it probably did one day every 10 because no one else
was working from home. So it kind of feel felt a bit
weird. But what it did do, very
(33:27):
crucially, was meant that if theif my son was doing a reading at
school or, you know, which was almost always at 11:00 or 2:00
for some reason, no one knows why, that I could actually go,
you know, and if there's just one of you.
So there's no, you can't, you can't split that responsibility.
(33:50):
That's super important. So that was a really, really
good decision. But yeah, I think it kind of
gives you a different sense of perspective, and I think I'm
much more focused on my own happiness than I was before my
(34:10):
husband got poorly. And I know your son just got his
GCSE results last week. He did, yeah.
And it's all gone well, so all. Here, it's all gone.
Well, yeah, I'm very proud of him, you know.
Crazy. And yeah, it seems to be turning
out all right, which is just fabulous.
Yeah. You mentioned there about asset
(34:32):
management, like the move to asset management might have come
sooner. What does asset management then
offer you that's not the same asworking on a a sell side
institution? That that's a really interesting
question and I'm not sure I can give a very good answer to that,
(34:53):
you know, because you know, fromthe outside looking in there
shouldn't be a big difference, right?
These are, these are both commercial enterprises.
You know, I wouldn't necessarilysay investment banking is is cut
throat and vice versa. Asset management is, is, is not
the softer version. You know, these are, these are
(35:16):
as I say commercial enterprise with with very strong focus on
performance. I just think the culture is more
supportive of the individual, right, to get the individuals,
you know, best work and a littlebit more understanding, I guess,
(35:38):
of life, right? You know that, that, you know,
life is not a straight line and you know, you, you sometimes you
need a bit of give and take. So yeah, I think and also for me
personally, I'd, I'd worked at three large institutions
ostensibly doing very similar roles and I knew that a fourth
(36:03):
large institution in a similar vein was not going to be that
different. I was definitely at a time in my
life when actually let's, let's see, let's see if I can
repurpose, recycle some of the things that I've learned in the
last 25 years and put them to a different use.
(36:26):
So I think it was also the desire to go and do something a
bit different. Yeah, no, that makes makes
complete sense. And that word recycling of that
experience and that that knowledge.
Maybe you could share some of that for the students, students
and graduates who are looking towork in their career in in
markets in terms of advice you could give in terms of breaking
(36:50):
into the industry, but not only just getting in thriving long
term. Like what are some of the things
that you would say to help? Them OK.
So in terms of, of breaking in, it's not, it's not like you see
on the telly, that's the first thing.
(37:10):
Do research, read around the subject and understand that, you
know, financial markets have a history.
You know, there wasn't a grand plan in credit markets, in FX
markets. And you know, no one sat back
in, you know, the late 60s, early 70s and, and went, Oh, I
(37:33):
know how to best design a fully functioning global marketplace
for, for assets. This is what we'll do.
And they're actually have grown up with different tech and
there's a history to these things, which alongside the
regulation informs the market structure, right.
(37:55):
So it's quite difficult to figure that out from the outside
looking in, but I think it's a really important part of the
discussion when you consider do I want to work in fixed income,
Do I want to work in equities, Do I want to work in FX?
Understand how those marketplaces are different would
(38:18):
be the first thing. And the second thing is, I guess
when you're in like the working world, and I think this is true
of, of not just finance, but alljobs, you know, it's very easy
when you're a student, you know exactly whether you've done well
or not because you'll get an exam, right?
(38:39):
My son's just that experience. You get a school, you know,
someone will tell you, right, this is, this is how you've done
relative to your peers. This is your school.
In the working world, there's nosuch thing as a school.
There are the objectives and goals that you're given and how
you perform against them. And the single most important
(39:03):
piece of advice I can give anyone is to understand what it
is you are being asked to do. Exactly.
Not what you assume is being asked of you, but exactly what
you're being asked to do. And it's really valuable lesson,
whoever is your boss or your boss's boss to actually sit down
(39:26):
with them and go, I'm not sure 100% understand, please can you
clarify, you know, what does this mean?
What does that mean? How will I, you know, at the end
of the year, how will you rate my performance?
Are very few people that do thatin in any great depth or detail.
(39:47):
And certainly if I look at back on my career, I, I've gotten the
wrong end of the stick so many times and wasted a lot of time
and effort and ultimately money because your performance will
determine your your outcome froma new renumeration perspective.
(40:11):
Because I didn't ask the right question.
I didn't really understand what was being asked of me.
So you know if you get that right from.
From the very beginning, I thinkyou you know you'll set yourself
on a path to success. Yeah, that's right.
(40:32):
Sound advice. And definitely probably across
industries like you say, not just finance.
It's probably suitable for everything.
Yeah, because you come with a perception of what good looks
like. But how do you not, you know,
you've only just, you've arrivedat the firm, you know, 2
minutes. So, you know, ask the qualifying
(40:55):
question. OK, final one to to wrap things
up, let's let's just go to lastly looking forwards and what
is excites you the most about the future of trading.
So could be technology talent, how the industry overall is
evolving. Is there one facet in particular
that you're getting you excited?That's an interesting question.
(41:16):
So the IT sounds this is a real sort of cliche comment, but it's
so true. The only constant is change.
I remember in 9596, there were two main providers of electronic
trading for foreign exchange, which is kind of like Pepsi and
Coca-Cola at the time, right? One of which was Atriax.
(41:41):
And only people my age will remember that name.
And the other one was FX all. And we know who won that that
battle. But I also remember what someone
said to me when we were talking about it.
They said to me, oh, this this Etrading nonsense, It'll never
take off. Oh, OK.
(42:05):
And if you look back, you know, the technology that we had in
the late 90s to now. Yeah, you can, you know, you
can. You can only imagine what's
coming our way in the next, you know, 10-12 years.
That I think is really exciting.I also think that, you know,
(42:30):
electronic trading of any asset class is a really, really useful
tool, but it is only that. It is only a tool and you know,
for those tail risk events that we're talking about, you know,
the machines stopped working. You know, you might remember the
Euro Swiss incident when the S&Bdid what they did.
(42:54):
At that point all the electronictrading pricing kind of hit
their circuit Breakers. So nothing was trading via
electronic means for a period ofa few minutes, but it might as
well have been a decade in in FXmarkets.
So there's always got to be a Plan B or a plan C.
So they are useful tools. I'm excited about the use of all
(43:20):
of that data for free trade, having traders being able to
make better, more informed decisions, you know, recycling
that data. I think that's pretty.
That's pretty exciting and we'vebarely scratched the surface of
what we could do there. So would that be an emerging
(43:42):
subsection of your team like data engineering or data
analytics? Yes, yeah, we, yes, we, we
already have that Yeah, it's something that we we look at,
you know, there's a there's a whole universe of asks not
started on yet, right. In terms of the difficult thing
(44:02):
is in a, in a, in a world where you can point them in any
direction is trying to figure out what's the most worthwhile
use of that resource for now, you know, but you can see as
people get better and faster, you know, you know, using AI to
code rather than having actual coders, you know, that will be
(44:26):
coming, you know, we'll be able to solve some of these queries
and problems faster, quicker, higher.
So that's that's exciting. OK, well, look, let's let's wrap
it up there. I just want to thank you once
again for for giving up your time.
I know this has been a few months in the making, so I
really appreciate you're. Very welcome.
(44:48):
Really enjoyed speaking to you. Thanks ever so much, Anthony.
All right, all the best. Take care, Kate.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to this careerInsight session where I am
joined by Kate Hill, the Global Head of Trading at in Viva
Investors to explore a 30 year career across City, Morgan
Stanley and HSBC. We're going to talk about
stepping onto the trading floor for the first time.
So Kate, I'm going to take you back to, I think it's 1994 at
(00:20):
home, which I think a lot of people will be interested to
know what was the trading floor like back then to navigating
pivotal market moments. I know you've seen more than a
few cultural differences betweentop institutions and how
technology is reshaping trading,which I know is something you
are very involved in. We'll also dive into some career
advice for students and what excites the most about the
(00:43):
future of markets. So Kate, welcome.
So great to be having this conversation.
Thank you. Thanks very much for having me.
Perhaps just to kick things off,someone kind of hears the
terminology of the global head of trading and also Aviva
Investors. So what?
What is that role and who are Aviva?
(01:05):
So Aviva Investors is the fund management arm of Aviva as in
the large UK based insurer. We have about £246 billion and
management in a variety of strategies across fixed income
and equities. And the role of global Head of
(01:28):
Trading, I guess, is to manage and oversee the trading teams
that trade for and on behalf of the portfolio managers
responsible for managing those assets.
So we're a team of about 30 people.
We have an office in Singapore, one in Toronto and the majority
(01:52):
of my teams based in London and each of those, so the team is,
is broadly split into smaller teams of asset class specialists
that focus on rates, credit, equities and so on.
OK, great stuff. Good to get the the context and
(02:12):
I remember when we met probably like a year ago or so.
I think one of the things I, I probed you for and found out
about your history was when you started.
And I was particularly interested because you started
back at City on an internship in1994.
And one of the events we met at was specifically around women in
(02:33):
markets as well. And I just kind of had that
question of like what was the trading floor like when you went
on it for the very first time going all the way back to that
internship at City? Well, that is a very long time
ago, so I guess probably I should put that into context.
(02:55):
So a summer internship was obviously is very, very
commonplace now and most of the large firms do it.
But at the time I was really just looking for relevant work
experience. I had told my father that I had
lined something up for the summer and I was working on it
(03:19):
and in essence only actually applied for the Citibank summer
internship program. There was no Plan B and I didn't
really know or understand what Iwas applying for.
It was a world's tiniest ad in acareer bulletin and it said send
(03:40):
a standard application form to the following address and mark
which of these you would be interested in joining.
It was corporate finance, was mergers and acquisitions,
shipping and sales and trading. I knew nothing about any of
those but I thought sales and trading seemed to sound the most
(04:02):
interesting. So I ticked that box and sent
off my application form. Didn't hear anything which was
bad and I phoned and phoned and phoned and I think her name was
Victoria, if I remember rightly,in HR who I spoke to pretty much
every week asking, you know, is there any chance of an
(04:23):
interview. And eventually she caved and I
got my interview and then I got invited down to to join them for
the summer in sales and trading.The Citibank office was actually
at the top of the Strand, so notin the City or in Canary Wharf,
and is a fairly unassuming building.
(04:43):
And the trading floor by modern standards was tiny, not purpose
built in any way. And I'd never seen anything like
it in my life. It was, you know, a room, a very
noisy room with desks quite close together, but a lot of
screens and not flat screens, big fat chunky screens like old
(05:06):
school television. And I just thought, what are all
these people doing? You know, why is it so noisy?
And I honestly, I think probablymy, one of my first observations
is it didn't look like a proper job in the sense that it just
seemed to be more fun than work.And so it so it proved to be the
(05:31):
case. So in terms of what was it like,
most people were quite young, I would say.
You know, that was one of my observations.
And of course, most, most of them were men, but I wasn't
really conscious of that. I think in 1994 it was kind of
(05:52):
as I expected it to be, so to speak.
So, But yeah, I, I knew pretty much within hours of walking
into that room that that it was probably going to be a fantastic
summer and. Then can I just go back to you
saw that ad, so at the moment you you're picking these
specific finance related roles, but where did finance come from
(06:15):
to start with? So why weren't you looking at
all other types of jobs? What led you to that?
Oh, no. So.
So if I go way back when I was, I suppose, deciding what to do
at university, I had a choice between fine art and something
more, you know, related to economics and politics.
(06:37):
So I chose to do a economics andpolitics degree at Newcastle and
that's where the sort of financeinterests came from definitely,
you know, free market economics,that sort of thing I thought was
incredibly interesting. And I specifically chose to read
economics and politics because Ididn't think those two could be
(06:58):
split. So those, you know, they're, you
know, inextricably linked if youlike.
So that's why we ended up in in finance because that's what I
was reading at university. On that point, do you think it's
more linked now than it was has been from when you started your
career on that point on the intersection of finance and
(07:20):
economics and politics? That's a that's a really
interesting question. So I think yes, the two are very
much linked, but I think marketsare quite a strange beast in the
sense that they don't always react to what you think they're
going to react to. So, you know, geopolitical risk
(07:42):
comes, you know, into the fray and out again, you know, a bit
like the tide. So it's not always, you know,
my, my sort of moral compass, ifyou like, is always a little bit
shocked that they don't react tovarious political issues.
But that's been the case for thelast 30 years and I don't
(08:04):
envisage it'll it'll change for the next 30 to be fair.
Yeah. And, and looking at those those
30 years, then I mean, one of mynext questions was going to be,
you know, some of the, the pivotal moments, the, the mark.
So there's two sides. There's market events because
the recent ones that people willrefresh in mind, there's the
COVID, there's the European debtcrisis, there's the financial
(08:26):
crisis. There's others prior to my
career as well, very meaningful ones that you would have been
part of, so on the market side, but also on the career moves and
some personal decisions. So when you reflect back on
those 30 years, what are some ofthose market events and some of
those more, more personal decisions that stick out to you?
(08:48):
Cross market events, I think, you know, from a from a trading
perspective, market events that sort of really stick out are the
ones that have, yeah, a very significant impact on what I
would describe as a proper functioning of markets.
(09:09):
You know, So normal what you know, tail risk events that
aren't, you know, where your ability to trade and execute is,
is severely challenged. You know, those are the probably
the ones that that stick out themost.
Probably the first one's probably, you know, the emerging
(09:32):
market crisis across Asia, whichyou know, I which now of course
we, we're, we're very familiar with trading restricted
currencies. But of course there was a period
before that all happened where some of those currencies were
more freely tradeable. That was probably the first sort
of shock. And then I suppose the global
(09:55):
financial crisis, obviously we talk about that as it as it's a
point in time event, but it wasn't really a point in time.
It was more of a, a series of, of smaller catastrophes that
ultimately led to a very, very big disruption in markets.
And I remember one clearly, which was when we had that
(10:17):
enormous move in Kiwi yen and the carry trade started to
unwind. And now that sticks out because
I got married and for, for various reasons, I've got
married on the weekend and I wasn't able to take my honeymoon
(10:37):
immediately because we had to make sure that desk was covered.
And obviously in that market environment, that was super
important. So I worked for a week after I
was married. And in that week I think I'd,
I'd never worked as hard my entire life.
The phone just rang and rang, rang and rang and we just dealt
(10:58):
and dealt and dealt and dealt. I mean, it's so volatile and so
crazy. And then I went on honeymoon and
that sticks in my mind because all I did was sleep.
And then first I was, I was in alovely hotel on the Amalfi Coast
sleeping a lot because I was, I was so, so exhausted from it.
(11:21):
So yeah, that's that's the one that sticks in my mind.
Question on that. When you're in the middle of one
of those periods like that week you described, is it just kind
of survival instinct and you're just running on pure energy at
that point? Like what, what does that
actually like? Because when people, especially
young people, hear that like a whole week of intensity, like
(11:42):
what does that? What's that actually like and
how do you actually get through that?
I don't. You don't really get the, you
don't really, it's not a decision, right.
So in the sense that at the timeI was an FX salesperson at HSBC
and you, you have a sort of a split mandate.
(12:03):
You have a responsibility to your clients and looking after
their best best interests and you have a responsibility to all
the traders that you work with. So it's, it's not an option,
it's not optional. You have, you have to fulfill
your role to the best of your abilities in, in, in, in that
(12:25):
space. And to be fair, if that's if
that's not something that you like doing or it kind of, you
know, fills you with fear, then you're probably in the wrong
job. And arguably you would have
realized that, you know, many, many months in advance of a a
financial crisis of that scale. It's, you know, it's just so
(12:50):
overwhelming, I guess, you know,yeah.
And so when COVID happened, how did COVID compare and contrast?
And when something like COVID happens and you have that big
market disruption, having seen several other market
disruptions, do you feel any better prepared with that
(13:11):
experience? Yes, I think so.
I mean, I think a very wise person wants describe the carry
trade to me as picking pennies up in front of the steamroller.
And if you've it's interesting, it's it's very interesting
people's perspective depending on when they join markets as to,
(13:34):
you know, how shocked they are by these type of tail risk
events. And the argument would be from a
COVID perspective that was very different in terms of the the
factors that were driving markets, but certainly not
shocked from the reaction function necessarily where.
(13:54):
And I think if you'd have just joined financial, the financial
service industry, that would have been a wow.
You know, and I think certainly from my perspective, at that
point, my predecessor had announced her retirement.
I was kind of getting over the shock of of her leaving because
(14:17):
she was a very, very dear friendof mine.
And also the news that I was going to do her role when COVID
sort of happened. So she actually left the week
that we removed ourselves from the office.
So I was running around, you know, making sure people were
(14:37):
able to work from home, you know, sorting out screens and so
forth. So again, very similar to that
week after I got married, didn'treally have time to think a lot
about what was actually happening.
It's only when you you get a moment to stop and and reflect
back do you realize, oh, wow, OK, that was that was pretty
(15:01):
big. But in the moment, I think
you're so focused on on what you're doing.
Is there ever any points then when you have say new early
careers people working within your team who are seeing like
COVID is their baseline of like they start that's their
experience, their early career. Do they look to you to to have
(15:23):
these sort of conversations then?
Or is it more driven out of dataanalytics these days to draw
these conclusions and for them to learn how much of it is a
quantitative versus qualitative kind of assessment when these
early careers people are talkingto Someone Like You all?
Right. So that's interesting.
So, you know, if I reflect back on some of my role, so, you
(15:50):
know, one of the reasons why FX salespeople started really early
was to give themselves, I suppose, half an hour, 40
minutes advantage on their clients.
So they could effectively prepare what's what was
laughably described as a morningrundown, right?
(16:13):
Where you would have to write your own little commentary on
what has happened in, you know, New York and and Asia and then
be in a position to phone your client, actually speak to them
and and talk about market events.
And you know, one of the reasonsthat you could do that is
(16:35):
obviously you were drawing at Citibank.
We were drawing from all of the local offices plus the news
channels that we had access to. But there was a a real
difference in terms of the news and information that the large
bank had access to versus the rest of the industry.
(16:56):
So you were able to add add value really quite simply
because your information was better than the next chat.
Now, of course, the world is very, very different and we're
probably in a, you know, as close to perfect information as
you can get. So there's nothing really from a
salesperson's perspective that they can add or tell a fund
(17:21):
management client first thing inthe morning other than, you
know, perhaps some of their thoughts on flows they've seen
and kind activity and and and soforth.
So you can imagine in terms of the data that's being collected,
I mean that's just fascinating and the processing and so forth
that goes on when you know, you look back at a different market
(17:46):
environment, correlations and and and so forth.
So that I think that's changed meaningfully over over a 30 year
period. And of course, you've, you know,
added on top of that, my memory fails me, but there was an
incident, I think in Indonesia in the early 90s.
(18:08):
And I was able to the, we knew it was bad because we could see
smoke and fire in the city from our local office.
And I was able to tell one of myclients who had a position
right. But now, of course, that that
would be live streamed on some form of social media.
So even that local edge has gone.
(18:33):
So it's a very, very different world I think for for new people
joining the industry to the one I I joined 30 years ago.
OK. Well, that, that kind of leads
beyond then to talk a little bitabout you've, you've worked
across some of the biggest institutions and I think a lot
(18:53):
of people forming these ideas about which firm they might want
to work for as well as the role.I know you City, Morgan Stanley,
HSBC in your current role. Just wondered what were some of
the cultural differences becausethere's some more international
focus, there's some more pureplay U.S. investment bank,
there's where you're at at the moment, a more UK centric.
(19:15):
So cultural operational differences between those firms
and and how did they individually impact the growth
of your career? That's a good question.
I, I suppose I was pretty lucky in that I started at Citibank,
which at the time was the dominant force in global foreign
(19:35):
exchange, huge net network, you know, and really at the top of
its game for, for a number of years.
But probably the biggest take away, I think for anyone new to
the industry is to understand that these large firms do have a
culture. It's I think when you're, you're
(19:56):
at university, it's quite hard to get your head round.
Well, what do you mean? What, what do you mean by that?
There is a, and there are, and Iwould say at large global banks,
the differences are really, really subtle.
But it is worth taking your timetalking to as many people as you
(20:17):
you can possibly find that work or have worked at that
institution to kind of get a feel for.
You know, is that, is that the sort of place where I would
where I would thrive? Is that the sort of environment
that I would do well in? You have to do your due
diligence, you really do. And there's no, there's no,
(20:37):
there's no way around that. So the more effort you put in
that, the better. But the other thing is, I would
say that those it's, it's, it's,it's not a static journey in the
sense that the culture of those large institutions, albeit it
changes slowly, it does change. So you know, the HSBC of 30
(20:59):
years ago, it's not the same as the HSBC today.
I would say the environment thatI really, really enjoyed working
in. And I think it was probably
because it was sort of I was at the right stage of my career
with some great people. Was it Morgan Stanley?
(21:22):
It was a really entrepreneurial type environment.
You were, it was very clear whatyour objectives were as a
salesperson and you were held accountable to achieving those
objectives. And I would say the second thing
was the PNL system between salesand trading was the best I
worked under. It was really collegiate was
(21:46):
very much about shared goals. So the whilst the roles and
responsibilities of sales and trading were different, you
definitely felt like you were working together as a team.
So that was a fun, that was a fun place to work.
But it, I think it shows you, you know, regardless of where
(22:11):
you're working, if you've got clear objectives and there's
some transparency around, you know, how your performance is
judged, then you're probably going to, to, to be in the best
place possible to succeed. In your current role, then how
does it differentiate when you become a leadership position?
(22:32):
So when you're a global head of trading compared to some of
these earlier roles that you had, like, how does your
day-to-day shift and what's thatprocess or journey like?
OK, that's, that's interesting because the first thing is that
despite being called the global head of trading, I don't trade
myself. I think at some point in your,
(22:53):
in your career, you, you're you're ready to step back from
that. So I, I, I was, and to focus on
other things. Now, for some people that would,
that would mean that the, that that's makes my job incredibly
unappealing. And I certainly have team
(23:13):
leaders that, that work with me that are, are still very much
focused on trading and they lovetrading.
And, you know, they, they, whilst they're happy to manage a
smaller team, my role probably doesn't excite them as much.
But I guess one of the things, so the first thing, the most
important thing is to actually manage the team, hopefully to,
(23:35):
to achieve their objectives and the objectives of the firm.
But it's more about the people side of things in the sense of
there's always something going on, whether that be, you know,
babies, weddings, you know, caring for elderly parents.
So there's a whole sort of people management and that's,
(23:56):
that's getting that right is a huge responsibility and, and
something that I love doing. It also means hiring individuals
and and I guess trying to build the team for not only the needs
of the business now, but where we think the business is going.
The other thing is Reg, you know, regulation, all of the
(24:19):
regulatory obligations that we have obviously to deliver best
execution for and on behalf of our clients, but Reg everywhere.
So Reg regulation that impacts our counterparties.
So SACA, GSIB, you know, all of these sort of post global
(24:39):
financial changes that have beenmade with respect to banks,
balance sheets, they can have animpact on liquidity and and so
forth. So, so people Reg and I guess
the third thing is managing I guess for the technology needs
of the desk now, but also where it might be in the next, you
(25:01):
know, 3-4, five years. So having a think around how the
needs of Aviva Investors, clients might change and making
sure that we're ready for that. I guess those are the three.
Those are the three big day-to-day functions, which
sadly no longer includes actually trading myself.
(25:25):
Did do you ever miss that? Then that like that that that
feeling the picking up some pennies in front of the
steamroller? Do you ever go what?
Yeah, but I don't think, I mean,I've occasionally volunteered,
but no one that that works with me think it thinks it's a great
idea. It was a bit like, you know, it
(25:47):
would be a bit like letting yourgranddad loose, you know?
It's not, it's, it's, it's, it'snot for me.
I'm, I, I recognize that the, myskill set is very much out of
date. So I'll leave that to people
that are more highly trained than I've been.
Yeah, you're too, too modest. I know that managing people is
(26:10):
probably the ultimate challenge,which is your full time thing
now. So with when I was looking
through your, you know, doing a bit of LinkedIn investigation,
looking through your kind of career history, I did, I did
notice that there was a formal leave of absence through your
career. And I was just kind of
interested to know the fact thatyou're in the role that you're
(26:33):
at now, which assuming is the first senior seat, but it did
include a gap there. I just wondered like what was
the decision that shaped that, that move and how did that work?
How did it come about and and a little bit more understanding
about that. Yeah, sure.
So that wasn't a planned leave of absence, that that was as a
(26:58):
consequence of circumstance. So what happened, very sadly, my
husband was diagnosed with stage4 bowel cancer and my son was, I
think 2/2 and 1/2 at the time. And it's the sort of news that
(27:19):
hits you like a train. And at the time, the doctors
told us that he was inoperable and incurable.
And you know, it's the classic question, how long have you got?
And the chap said six months. So it took a while for that news
(27:41):
to sink in. And it's going to sound crazy,
but at the time I did actually carry on working for a bit.
And that's that seems strange when I look back now, it's like,
that's ridiculous. But when you're, I suppose that
(28:03):
sort of news hits you, you, you cling to the familiar, you cling
to the routine and you kind of want to be normal.
You just, you know, that the, the size of the elephant in the
room is so enormous that actually, you know, putting 1
foot in front of the other and going in and out of the office
(28:26):
offered a degree of, of comfort.And in the end, within a, within
a month or so, it became obviousthat that was a really bad
decision for everyone. And it was the decision to leave
HSBCI made in about 30 seconds. And I phoned my husband and I
(28:50):
said, oh, oh, just say no, I'm just, I've just resigned.
I'll see you later. I didn't even think about it.
Well, OK, what do you want for tea?
And that was it, because it seemed such the right thing to
do. As it turned out, I had two
fantastic bosses at the time whoagreed that I would take a leave
(29:15):
of absence for, you know, indeterminate amount of time so
that I would have the security of, of a role at some point back
at HSBC, which was a very generous and fantastic thing for
them to offer me. So I left and we had about, I
(29:41):
suppose, 12 months together trying to get in better.
We, we never really gave up on, on trying to cure the incurable,
incurable, but in the end he lost his battle and died in
January 2013. So that's why there's a leave of
(30:04):
absence. I'm very grateful for HSBC to
allowing me to effectively not resign and and just be away for
that period of time. Well, well, thank you for
sharing that. I mean, that's definitely a huge
event to happen. So, so from going back to work
(30:28):
then, I mean, where's your head at after a life situation like
that? I mean, are you, did it make you
reconsider from a career perspective?
Like what do I want to do now? Or are you, is it, is it the
natural default to go back to asyou said at the initial news
outbreak where you're like just need to get back to one foot in
(30:50):
front of the other and go to what I know and familiarity is
get you back on the horse again?Yeah, I think so.
So I think it kind of there's, there's if I look back on that,
there's no way that that doesn'timpact your perspective on life.
You know, we certainly from frommy perspective, it changed.
(31:16):
We didn't change my priorities, but it kind of put everything
into sort of sharp relief. So my primary purpose, well,
obviously I was, I was, I'm now at that point, I was a single
parent, not planned on being a single parent.
And I still wanted to, you know,look after my son to the best of
(31:37):
my abilities and you know that that becomes your number one
priority. So I decided to go back to work.
I went back to HSBC initially again, I think it was, it felt
like the right thing to do. It was familiar.
(31:59):
I knew everyone, everyone knew me.
You know, I didn't have to explain or go through everything
and it, you know, it just, it just felt like the right thing
to do. I think in hindsight, if I'd
have been a bit braver and a bitmore focused on the longer term,
(32:20):
I maybe would have taken more time to think about what I
really wanted to do. And I might have, you know, if I
ever looking back on that decision, I probably went back
to work a bit too soon, probablyshould have taken, you know, a
bit more time to think about do I really want to go back to a
(32:43):
bank or do I want to do something different?
You know, I think if I'd have taken a bit more of a step back,
I would have ended up at an asset manager sooner than it
actually took to happen. And I think the decision to join
Aviva Investors was was really, really good one.
It also gave me a little bit of flexibility as a single parent.
(33:05):
So I had this is pre COVID, which was fantastic, actually
had one day a week the ability to work from home and I never
really used it probably did one day every 10 because no one else
was working from home. So it kind of feel felt a bit
weird. But what it did do, very
(33:27):
crucially, was meant that if theif my son was doing a reading at
school or, you know, which was almost always at 11:00 or 2:00
for some reason, no one knows why, that I could actually go,
you know, and if there's just one of you.
So there's no, you can't, you can't split that responsibility.
(33:50):
That's super important. So that was a really, really
good decision. But yeah, I think it kind of
gives you a different sense of perspective, and I think I'm
much more focused on my own happiness than I was before my
(34:10):
husband got poorly. And I know your son just got his
GCSE results last week. He did, yeah.
And it's all gone well, so all. Here, it's all gone.
Well, yeah, I'm very proud of him, you know.
Crazy. And yeah, it seems to be turning
out all right, which is just fabulous.
Yeah. You mentioned there about asset
(34:32):
management, like the move to asset management might have come
sooner. What does asset management then
offer you that's not the same asworking on a a sell side
institution? That that's a really interesting
question and I'm not sure I can give a very good answer to that,
(34:53):
you know, because you know, fromthe outside looking in there
shouldn't be a big difference, right?
These are, these are both commercial enterprises.
You know, I wouldn't necessarilysay investment banking is is cut
throat and vice versa. Asset management is, is, is not
the softer version. You know, these are, these are
(35:16):
as I say commercial enterprise with with very strong focus on
performance. I just think the culture is more
supportive of the individual, right, to get the individuals,
you know, best work and a littlebit more understanding, I guess,
(35:38):
of life, right? You know that, that, you know,
life is not a straight line and you know, you, you sometimes you
need a bit of give and take. So yeah, I think and also for me
personally, I'd, I'd worked at three large institutions
ostensibly doing very similar roles and I knew that a fourth
(36:03):
large institution in a similar vein was not going to be that
different. I was definitely at a time in my
life when actually let's, let's see, let's see if I can
repurpose, recycle some of the things that I've learned in the
last 25 years and put them to a different use.
(36:26):
So I think it was also the desire to go and do something a
bit different. Yeah, no, that makes makes
complete sense. And that word recycling of that
experience and that that knowledge.
Maybe you could share some of that for the students, students
and graduates who are looking towork in their career in in
markets in terms of advice you could give in terms of breaking
(36:50):
into the industry, but not only just getting in thriving long
term. Like what are some of the things
that you would say to help? Them OK.
So in terms of, of breaking in, it's not, it's not like you see
on the telly, that's the first thing.
(37:10):
Do research, read around the subject and understand that, you
know, financial markets have a history.
You know, there wasn't a grand plan in credit markets, in FX
markets. And you know, no one sat back
in, you know, the late 60s, early 70s and, and went, Oh, I
(37:33):
know how to best design a fully functioning global marketplace
for, for assets. This is what we'll do.
And they're actually have grown up with different tech and
there's a history to these things, which alongside the
regulation informs the market structure, right.
(37:55):
So it's quite difficult to figure that out from the outside
looking in, but I think it's a really important part of the
discussion when you consider do I want to work in fixed income,
Do I want to work in equities, Do I want to work in FX?
Understand how those marketplaces are different would
(38:18):
be the first thing. And the second thing is, I guess
when you're in like the working world, and I think this is true
of, of not just finance, but alljobs, you know, it's very easy
when you're a student, you know exactly whether you've done well
or not because you'll get an exam, right?
(38:39):
My son's just that experience. You get a school, you know,
someone will tell you, right, this is, this is how you've done
relative to your peers. This is your school.
In the working world, there's nosuch thing as a school.
There are the objectives and goals that you're given and how
you perform against them. And the single most important
(39:03):
piece of advice I can give anyone is to understand what it
is you are being asked to do. Exactly.
Not what you assume is being asked of you, but exactly what
you're being asked to do. And it's really valuable lesson,
whoever is your boss or your boss's boss to actually sit down
(39:26):
with them and go, I'm not sure 100% understand, please can you
clarify, you know, what does this mean?
What does that mean? How will I, you know, at the end
of the year, how will you rate my performance?
Are very few people that do thatin in any great depth or detail.
(39:47):
And certainly if I look at back on my career, I, I've gotten the
wrong end of the stick so many times and wasted a lot of time
and effort and ultimately money because your performance will
determine your your outcome froma new renumeration perspective.
(40:11):
Because I didn't ask the right question.
I didn't really understand what was being asked of me.
So you know if you get that right from.
From the very beginning, I thinkyou you know you'll set yourself
on a path to success. Yeah, that's right.
(40:32):
Sound advice. And definitely probably across
industries like you say, not just finance.
It's probably suitable for everything.
Yeah, because you come with a perception of what good looks
like. But how do you not, you know,
you've only just, you've arrivedat the firm, you know, 2
minutes. So, you know, ask the qualifying
(40:55):
question. OK, final one to to wrap things
up, let's let's just go to lastly looking forwards and what
is excites you the most about the future of trading.
So could be technology talent, how the industry overall is
evolving. Is there one facet in particular
that you're getting you excited?That's an interesting question.
(41:16):
So the IT sounds this is a real sort of cliche comment, but it's
so true. The only constant is change.
I remember in 9596, there were two main providers of electronic
trading for foreign exchange, which is kind of like Pepsi and
Coca-Cola at the time, right? One of which was Atriax.
(41:41):
And only people my age will remember that name.
And the other one was FX all. And we know who won that that
battle. But I also remember what someone
said to me when we were talking about it.
They said to me, oh, this this Etrading nonsense, It'll never
take off. Oh, OK.
(42:05):
And if you look back, you know, the technology that we had in
the late 90s to now. Yeah, you can, you know, you
can. You can only imagine what's
coming our way in the next, you know, 10-12 years.
That I think is really exciting.I also think that, you know,
(42:30):
electronic trading of any asset class is a really, really useful
tool, but it is only that. It is only a tool and you know,
for those tail risk events that we're talking about, you know,
the machines stopped working. You know, you might remember the
Euro Swiss incident when the S&Bdid what they did.
(42:54):
At that point all the electronictrading pricing kind of hit
their circuit Breakers. So nothing was trading via
electronic means for a period ofa few minutes, but it might as
well have been a decade in in FXmarkets.
So there's always got to be a Plan B or a plan C.
So they are useful tools. I'm excited about the use of all
(43:20):
of that data for free trade, having traders being able to
make better, more informed decisions, you know, recycling
that data. I think that's pretty.
That's pretty exciting and we'vebarely scratched the surface of
what we could do there. So would that be an emerging
(43:42):
subsection of your team like data engineering or data
analytics? Yes, yeah, we, yes, we, we
already have that Yeah, it's something that we we look at,
you know, there's a there's a whole universe of asks not
started on yet, right. In terms of the difficult thing
(44:02):
is in a, in a, in a world where you can point them in any
direction is trying to figure out what's the most worthwhile
use of that resource for now, you know, but you can see as
people get better and faster, you know, you know, using AI to
code rather than having actual coders, you know, that will be
(44:26):
coming, you know, we'll be able to solve some of these queries
and problems faster, quicker, higher.
So that's that's exciting. OK, well, look, let's let's wrap
it up there. I just want to thank you once
again for for giving up your time.
I know this has been a few months in the making, so I
really appreciate you're. Very welcome.
(44:48):
Really enjoyed speaking to you. Thanks ever so much, Anthony.
All right, all the best. Take care, Kate.
Thank you.
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