Cathy Gibson, head of fixed income trading – UK asset management, Deutsche Asset Management
Cathy Gibson joined Deutsche Asset Management in September 2015, taking charge of the firm’s fixed income trading desk for the UK region. On a day-to-day basis she has a lot of responsibility, from execution and oversight to adding value to the investment process.
Gibson’s career spans 12 years, with her first role being a centralised dealer at Bank of Ireland Asset Management. Remaining in Ireland, she moved on to become a principal dealer at Bank of Ireland Global Markets in 2010, before joining Pioneer Investments as a senior fixed income trader. It was last year Gibson departed Dublin for London to head up Deutsche Asset Management’s fixed income trading.
She says that being entrusted with and handling other people’s assets is a huge responsibility, and having a team of highly skilled individuals is crucial. The changing regulatory environment is one of Gibson’s concerns for the industry. She says regulation itself is not the issue, but in a global cross-border environment, the potential inconsistencies in how the regulations are implemented in different regions can create challenges.
Regulation doesn’t take up all of Gibson’s time however, as she is in fact an avid sailing boat racer. Dublin Bay may not be known for its sunshine, but it’s certainly not short of wind, Gibson says, so an afternoon on the water is never dull.
Buy-side participants have a responsibility to commit to the resources, which help ensure clients can flourish in future, Gibson believes. Deutsche Asset Management actively supports initiatives that can add value to its business. It’s all part of the job at Deutsche, as Gibson explains, the developments in the FinTech space and evolving market structure has become an even bigger part of her day-to-day role as head of fixed income trading.
Paul Shanta , co-head, absolute return government bonds team, Old Mutual Global Investors
Earlier this year, Paul Shanta was named Old Mutual Global Investor’s co-head of its absolute return government bond (ARBG) team, following the departure of Russ Oxley.
Shanta is no stranger to the big stage, after representing the Scottish national team in basketball. A senior member of the Old Mutual portfolio management team since 2015, Shanta was instrumental to the launch of the new trading desk, as well as its current strategy. Being involved in both portfolio management and execution, Shanta has proved he is a rising star within Old Mutual’s ranks.
Shanta began his career at Resolution Asset Management in 2008, which later became Ignis Asset Management, after coming out of university with a degree in maths, statistics and finance. After joining the government bond fund team as an assistant portfolio manager, he later became part of a newly launch pension fund, managing around £1.5 billion. He became a specialist in complex products, and became responsible for trading futures, inflation swaps and other derivatives.
“A natural fit for me to focus on that rather than become a bond portfolio manager because of the focus it has on more complex products. Allowed me to specialise in inflation and options trading space,” Shanta recalls.
In 2014 following the acquisition of Ignis by Standard Life, he decided to leave and join Old Mutual, managing a portfolio worth £500 million and trading similar products.
Now as co-head of the ARBG, Shanta says derivatives will be a key to the team’s trading strategy. “Derivatives provide us a platform to find opportunities in mispricing and to take advantage of that.”
Dan Veiner, head of fixed income trading, EMEA, BlackRock
After studying for a masters in electrical engineering at Stanford University, Dan Veiner went on to do a job involving algorithms that would foreshadow what was to come.
He developed learning algorithms that would figure out optimal placement for advertisements until, in 2001, he moved on to an equity options trading desk, where using algorithms to trade securities was just beginning to become the next big thing in finance.
After two years as a market maker for Group One Trading, Veiner moved on to work for BlackRock, where he remains to this day, currently as head of fixed income trading for EMEA.
No doubt his deep knowledge of algorithm development continues to serve him well in developing the trading strategies of the future. Fixed income in particular is currently undergoing the kind of electronic transformation that equities saw back at the turn of the century, and Veiner is at the forefront of that evolution.
Alan Rath, fixed Income and FX trader, Pioneer Investments
Alan is a FX and fixed income trader at Pioneer investments in Dublin Ireland. Shortly after joining Pioneer Alan was a key member of a project investigating how to improve their 3rd party FX.
The project took 6 months to complete and involved liaising with many stakeholders both internally and externally. The team achieved their objectives of greater transparency and better execution.
Alan currently works on a dynamic global execution desk as a Senior Fixed Income trader based in Dublin. Pioneer provides a best in class execution across Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, FX, both listed and OTC Derivatives (rates, FX & credit) to its PM’s and analysts.
To Alan, the biggest issue facing his industry is regulation. Alan claimed that being a global asset manager operating in different jurisdictions made him subject to many regulations which are evolving all the time. He stated this adds to the complexity of execution as some funds will have different rules to satisfy. Alan believes it’s very difficult to keep up to date with the evolving regulations whilst working on a busy execution desk. This prompts Alan to individually join his peers at buy side forums to keep abreast and share the difficulties he says.
Alan likes to keep active outside work. He play’s football twice a week in a social level league in addition to the occasional game of squash.
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