Alex Pilato
TradeRisks' Chief Executive, Alex Pilato, was the founder of JP Morgan's risk advisory businesses. He pioneered the development of sophisticated modelling techniques to simulate the performance of hedging strategies within the context of financial portfolios and balance sheets. He established a market reputation in risk management as a trusted advisor to central banks, sovereign debt agencies, ministries of finance, major corporates and financial institutions. He developed, maintained and supervised debt benchmarks for sovereign borrowers and debt agencies. He is a regular speaker on sovereign asset and liability management issues at World Bank and IMF conferences, and is Chairman of key industry conferences on credit and market risk, and speaker on "approaches to determine credit reserves and capital" and "asset and liability management and the role of capital" at internal seminars organised by central banks, the SEC in Hong Kong and the FSA in the UK.
After 7 years at JP Morgan, Alex Pilato moved to HSBC to lead the bank’s global risk advisory services and then to Tokai Bank Europe (TBE) as head of Capital Markets and Merchant Banking.
Alex Pilato is an experienced manager of trading teams. He managed the client trading teams at TBE over a number of years which included periods of extremely volatile market conditions such as the Asian financial crisis. He was a member of TBE's Executive, Risk and New Products Committees which were also responsible for the extensive proprietary trading activities of the bank. Alex Pilato has therefore considerable experience on the totality of issues surrounding the management of proprietary trading operations, e.g. allocation of capital across business, recruitment, traders' compensation, risk management, compliance and regulatory issues.
Theoretical Physics First Class Honours Degree, Queen Mary College, London
Mathematics D.Phil., Magdalen College, Oxford
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Phil Jenkins
Phil Jenkins joined TradeRisks as Managing Director in 2009 from RBC Capital Markets.
After Graduating from Birmingham University, Phil joined Hambros Bank before moving to RBC Capital Markets, where he was a Director and a member of the London Infrastructure Management Committee.
He specialises in bond origination in the residential property and infrastructure sectors, with particular focus on affordable housing and regeneration. He has been directly involved in over GBP4bn of funding in both the banking and capital markets, including some of the most innovative bank and bond transactions seen in the social housing sector. Phil has advised and arranged some of the largest own name bond issues in the sector including Affinity Sutton, Circle Anglia and Places for People in 2008 and Sovereign in 2009.
Geography and Economics (B.Soc.Sc), Birmingham University
Andrew Hart
Andrew Hart joined TradeRisks in 2003 from the Devon and Cornwall Housing Association and is a Managing Director.
After completing a law degree at the University of Liverpool, Andrew studied to become a chartered accountant, winning prizes at both the intermediate and final examinations. After six years in accountancy practice, he joined Devon and Cornwall Housing Association, where he carried out various roles before becoming group treasurer in 1998. His primary duties involved advising the board on all treasury matters including treasury policy, loan negotiation and refinancing, debt portfolio structure, cash flow and liquidity management.
Other responsibilities included investment appraisal, design and maintenance of the group's long term financial plan and strategic performance measurement across the organisation. He was also finance director of the group's commercial development subsidiary.
Law - LLB Honours Degree, University of Liverpool
Chartered Accountant (ICAEW)
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Antoine Pesenti
Antoine Pesenti is a Managing Director of TradeRisks.
Antoine joined TradeRisks in 2002 from the EBRD where he was responsible for the development of Monte Carlo simulation short-rate models for the risk management of government and corporate bond positions.
Prior to EBRD, Antoine was responsible for the development of yield curve and derivatives pricing models and libraries at Refco, where he subsequently became in charge of the OTC Desk risk management.
Before joining the City, Antoine Pesenti had a distinguished mathematics academic career in France and Italy. He was assistant professor of mathematics in Classe Préparatoire aux Grandes Ecoles, Lycée Monge, Chambéry.
MSc in Finance and Economics with distinction, LSE, London
MPhil in Mathematical Logic and MSc in Pure Mathematics, ENS Cachan and Université de Paris
BA in Philosophy, La Sorbonne, Paris
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Richard Hodgson
Richard Hodgson joined TradeRisks as Director in 2010.
Richard has over 20 years Financial Markets experience in Risk Management, Structured Products, Portfolio Trading, Proprietary Trading, Market Making and IT development most recently having been Head of Equities Exotic & Index Structuring at UBS Investment Bank where he managed a team creating innovative investment products for distribution across Europe.
Prior to UBS, Richard was responsible for Portfolio Trading and Proprietary Index Arbitrage Trading at NatWest Securities & Bankers Trust and Equities Cash Market Making at Nomura.
Richard has also designed and developed both Equity and Gilt Front Office trading systems for many Sell side institutions including Nomura, NatWest Securities, Deutsche Bank, Daiwa Securities and Bankers Trust.
Before joining the City, Richard worked for the Ministry of Defence in Sonar Detection.
MBA, London Business School
BSc Mathematics, University College London
Certificate in Quantitative Finance
Jonathan Century
Jonathan Century is a Non-Executive Director of TradeRisks. He has over 35 years financial and economic modelling experience in financial markets, industry and insurance. He is currently a Partner at ADG Holdings LLP.
Jonathan has been a senior member of the risk advisory team at JP Morgan and the Capital Markets Department at Tokai Bank Europe, has managed arbitrage hedge funds at Merrill Lynch and Mako Investment Managers and has developed Value-At-Risk systems at JP Morgan and Mako Global Derivatives.
Furthermore, he has developed front-office trading systems for European Central Banks, has launched the first insurance-linked security, has been head of Quant Modelling for proprietary trading teams and insurance company, has been Senior Financial Economist at British Airports Authority, and has been Senior Corporate Planner at BICC plc.
Mathematics First Class Honours Degree, Manchester University
Operational Research, M.Sc. Brunel University
M.B.A. City University Business
Fergus Murison
Fergus Murison is a Non-Executive Director of TradeRisks. He has been with the company since 2004 and has over 25 years of experience in financial markets. Fergus has held the position of Managing Director at three institutions where he was instrumental in developing trading businesses and strongly increasing each group's profitability: first, at JP Morgan between 1987 - 1994, where he headed the syndicate desk; next at HSBC between 1994 - 1998, where he headed all capital markets trading, including primary and secondary activity and the derivative trading books; and thirdly at Tokyo Mitsubishi International, where he headed all sales and trading activity.
Fergus started his financial career at Orion Royal Bank in the foreign exchange markets and, after training in accounting and credit analysis, went on to become a leading figure in the development of the swap market.
In the last few years Fergus has managed a successful Macro hedge fund.
Mathematics MA, Worcester College , Oxford
Paul Rickard
Paul Rickard, Director, joined TradeRisks in 2006.
Upon completion of his studies at the London School of Economics, Paul joined the Corporate Tax Real Estate team at Arthur Andersen before joining Deloitte where he obtained his ACA qualification. Paul spent 6 years working in the Real Estate and Banking & Capital Markets teams, including a 20 month secondment to the Financial Services team in New Zealand.
Paul’s duties within Arthur Andersen and Deloitte were a variety of domestic and cross-border compliance, consulting, structuring and project management roles in a number of jurisdictions.
Paul focuses on fund management, domestic and cross-border structuring, taxation issues, business planning, project management, and new business generation.
BSc in Philosophy & Economics, LSE
ACA Chartered Accountant, ICAEW
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Nathan Pickles
Nathan Pickles, Director, joined TradeRisks in 2008 with responsibilities for client trading and risk management.
Nathan moved to TradeRisks from KPMG Corporate Finance where he worked as an advisor and financial modeller, with a particular focus on structuring project finance transactions.
Prior to his time at KPMG Nathan also worked as a Senior ALM Analyst at HBOS, and as a Treasury Accountant and Risk Analyst at the Skipton financial services group, where he played a central role in designing hedge accounting systems and derivative pricing models introduced under IFRS fair value accounting.
Nathan was an international prizewinner whilst studying towards his ACMA accounting qualification.
Mathematics and Cellular Biology First Class Honours Degree: University of Durham
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Passed Finalist
Certificate in Corporate Finance, Securities Institute, London
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Simon Century
Simon Century, Associate Director, joined TradeRisks in 2006 and leads the financial modeling function of TradeRisks as well as being heavily involved in all corporate finance operations and special projects.
Simon completed his AMCT Diploma in Treasury with the Association of Corporate Treasurers, specialising in financial mathematics, corporate finance and risk management.
Prior to joining TradeRisks, Simon carried out award-winning research at the University of Liverpool using a priming based approach to investigate the link between spatial-temporal intelligence and audio stimuli.
BSc in Psychology Honours Degree, University of Liverpool
AMCT Diploma in Treasury, Association of Corporate Treasurers
Certificate in Corporate Finance and Funding, Association of Corporate Treasurers
Certificate in Financial Mathematics and Modelling, Association of Corporate Treasurers
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Robyn James
Robyn James, Manager, joined TradeRisks in 2009.
Following completion of her undergraduate degree in Marketing and Management at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Robyn worked as a consultant for Reed specialising in executive administration strategy in public facing services.
Prior to joining Reed, Robyn also worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in their Insurance and Investment Management Department as part of the audit team.
BA in Marketing and Management Honours Degree, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Greg Brandt
Greg Brandt, Associate Director, joined TradeRisks in 2005 after completing his masters in IT & Economics at The Poznan University of Economics.
Greg has over three years combined experience working as an application developer, IT consultant and business analyst at Bertelsmann AG and also at the Nieruchomosci Wielkopolski, property company. Greg’s past experience includes 1 year Java and webservices development, 2 years Delphi and 3 years database (Oracle, PostrgeSQL, MS SQL Server, PLSQL) design and development.
MSc in IT & Economics, University of Economics, Poznan
Certificate in Investment Management, Securities Institute, London
Alessandro Guicciardi
Alessandro Guicciardi, Associate, joined TradeRisks in 2010.
Alessandro joined the company after completing a postgraduate masters in Quantitative Finance and Risk Management at Universita Bocconi in Milan. He previously completed a master degree in Engineering with Business management at King’s College London. His final year projects were related to Black-Scholes modelling in option pricing and to the Carr-Madan option pricing formulation within both the Heston stochastic volatility and Merton Jump diffusion models.
MEng 1st Class Honours, Engineering with business management, King’s College London
Master in Quantitative finance and risk management, Universita Bocconi