“ It ’ s all about improving performance . I come to my desk every day and sit down and ask myself : what can I do better ?”
Panic stations The importance of these relationships was thrown into sharp relief with the advent of the Russia-Ukraine conflict earlier this year , which highlighted the strength of communication channels both within and outside the organisation .
“ We started hearing rumours around the invasion of Ukraine , so of course it was really important to keep our fund
managers updated with feedback from local markets – it was a minute-by-minute situation where everyone was constantly assessing the probability of serious war , and unfortunately that became a reality pretty quickly . We were trying to risk manage our positions and we saw a lot of brokers start to pull down the shutters and stop trading local Russian and GDR equities , so we had to be bold and brave and seize the opportunities when we saw them , as well as ensuring our operational risk was covered . It was a pretty hairy few days and having a really tight team was key . As was , it must be said , being in the office – we were just coming out of lockdown at that point and of course the progression towards hybrid working has been largely positive , but in situations like that , you just can ’ t achieve what you need to unless you ’ re all in the same space together .
“ As much as anything else , it was needed in order to support the younger traders – a lot of them hadn ’ t really seen anything like that before , so it was important for the more experienced players to keep cool , keep a calm composure , and keep the conversation flowing around trading strategies , how best we should trade , who we should trade with . We had constant team huddles to ensure that trading was as effective and efficient as normal .”
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