WBS are about to run the 3rd Women in Quantitative Finance Americas Conference (WQFA). Why is this conference particularly important to you?
The Women in Quantitative Finance Conference is now in it’s 10th running (7th London and 3rd NYC) and is actually our most popular conference, which is fantastic news. For years our conferences would have 2 or 3 female quants attend and 1 or 2 speakers, so I was asked the question what can I do? My initial reaction was nothing and blamed STEM at school and QF being a more male orientated career. However Katia Babbar amongst some other female quants didn’t like that answer so I was gently asked to up my game and so the WQF (A) was born. I am really proud of this conference and the vibe is completely different to anything else we run. There’s genuine camaraderie and companionship at the event and the panel discussions are the most passionate of any of our events.
This event is no profit and has been supported by BofA, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, CompatibL, RavenPack and Citi over the years.
The 3rd WQFA is sold out once again next week.
We notice that the Quantitative Developer Certificate (QDC) course is among your offering. This is an interesting twist, because most of the quant courses tend to focus on the mathematical aspects. In what ways is QDC different?
The QDC is one of my favourite products we have created over the years, students genuinely enjoy their six months journey. The certificate has been designed specifically to get people jobs in the capital markets sector. Not only do we teach them how to become a quant developer from scratch, but throughout the course we assist with sample test questions from real-life quant interviews.
WBS has been organizing quant finance conferences and providing training and consulting services since 2000. In what ways is this market different now to 2000?
The whole landscape is completely different now and quantitative finance is vast area with many different avenues and job titles. It used to be just junior, senior and head of quants in medium to large investment banks and a few vendors back in 2000. WBS obviously started with training on traditional modules like Hull and White (both John and Alan came to our conferences in the early days). Then we specialised on Interest Rate Modelling training with Rebonato, Andreasen, Piterbarg, Brigo, Mercurio, Morini etc and later Credit and CVA with Schonbucher, Gregory, Green etc. These two topics really put us on the map as a quant finance training provider. We mothballed the company after the market crash in 2008, which was handy as my second daughter was born in 2009 so I could spend most of my time help bringing up my children. Post crash saw the rise of machine learning, so at WBS we responded with the creation of The Machine Learning Institute Certificate in Finance (MLI) and now obviously Gen AI / LLMs dominates our sector.
After over two decades at WBS only one topic still remains constant within the WBS family, the Volatility / Options Stream at the Quantitative Finance Conference. It’s still one of the most popular topics and over the years has stood strong against all the newcomers.
What are the hottest topics in quant finance right now?
The buzziest of buzz words obviously right now is Gen AI. I have seen many new kids on the block come and go over the years and dominate our conferences. CVA, xVa, KVA etc, Blockchain / DLT and quantum computing that still sits waiting patiently. Gen AI looks here to stay.
What would be your advise to beginning and aspiring quant analysts and developers?
Obviously take the MLI or QDC, ha ha, depending on your career path. Then I would recommend becoming a specialist to start with and work in a respected team with a caring smart boss. Simple things like work hard, hone your programming skills, stay in the department/company and work towards promotion and being respected yourself. These are obviously not quant specific and apply to most careers. Being happy at work is so important for our general wellbeing, so find something you enjoy.