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would see a lot more automation of
trade flow in that space.”
Regardless of the type of security
or the distance between traders
and portfolio managers, commu-
nication will still be a key element
of each particular strategy. Gibson
recalls her time with Bank of
Ireland’s Global Markets division –
her only stint on the sell-side – as
being particularly beneficial when
it comes to managing the role of
her portfolio managers at RLAM.
“When I returned to the buy-side
I very much looked at my portfolio
managers as my clients and valued
them as much as I did my external
clients when I was on the sell side”,
she says. “That was actually a sea
change, in terms of how they were
used to being treated, and it is very
much the culture that I try to instil
in our team; that your clients are
sitting behind you. Ensure there is
segregation and challenge where
needs be, but our end game is
the same, the best possible client
outcome.”
Bringing these types of experi-
ences to building up new trading
desks has helped to smooth out the
transition – Gibson says that the
process of building out the RLAM
desk was a far smoother process
than she or the business believed
it might be – and this was largely
down to the collaborative approach
between the equity, fixed income
traders and fund managers.
Gibson says such collaboration
and teamwork between the dealing
desk and portfolio managers,
reviewing trading strategies and re-
sults, ensuring there is an ongoing
dialogue between both sides and
being willing to learn from each
other has led to better end results,
for example in RLAM’s passive
operations where she says the team
has looked at execution strategies
aimed at reducing tracking errors.
44 // TheTrade // Summer 2019
G I B S O N ]
“What I would like in future is for that to naturally
expand out between the portfolio managers as well,
because we have brought them together as well for the
first time,” she says. “We have one investment floor
with the dealing desk essentially in the middle and
the idea behind that was to not only bring the traders
together, but to bring the portfolio managers across
assets together. The bottom line is that in some cases
they are covering the same names, they are just doing
it from a different angle.”