Hilgers new boss of Optiver
Paul Hilgers will be the new CEO of Optiver, replacing Jelle Elzinga who announced this summer to retire on January 1st 2014. The German Hilgers is currently head of Optiver Australia. He previously worked for Van der Moolen in Amsterdam and Fortis Clearing in Sydney. Johan Kaemingk will stay in the board but will focus on risk management.
Hilgers started playing in the Dutch orange jersey twenty-five years ago. He started as market maker for AOT (Amsterdam Options Traders) in Germany in 1992, trading the German and Swiss option markets. From 1997 to 2003 he was Managing Director for Van der Moolen Germany, but moved to the head office in Amsterdam.
He stayed there for two years till 2004. He wasn’t afraid to make some bold decisions and fired some traders. Hence, not everybody has sweet memories (nl) about him – but then again, when you want to stay friends with everyone you shouldn’t become a manager.
After leaving Van der Moolen he joined Fortis Clearing Asia Pacific, before he finally switched to Optiver in 2007. Optiver has a reputation for only hiring fresh graduates, but at this level they seem to have other priorities. He was promoted to CEO of Optiver Asia Pacific in 2010. Hilgers completed Harvard in 2012.
Canard – almost
This year I almost published a canard on the matter, suggesting Australian head of trading Baydon Fischer would be the next boss in Amsterdam. After all, he sold his five bedroom five badroom residence in Sydney and he was about to be promoted within Optiver to a high position outside Australia. Connecting some dots created a scoop, but turned out he moved to China instead of Amsterdam. And besides, his Facebook pictures didn’t make it a likely successor of Mr Correct, Jelle Elzinga. Irony is I even checked it with Paul Hilgers (who gave a friendly no-comment, of course).
CEO CookOff
Still unknown whether he will stay with CEO CookOff 2014. Hope it was this TV show which arranged this professional portrait for him, a boyband like celebrity picture. At least it’s a lot better than this mugshot in 2011.
That “Harvard” must be one of those part time executive courses. Well, it didn’t lay him wind eggs.
harvard is just quid pro quo, harvard gets fees and another ceo on it’s alum list, hilgers gets some mgmt lessons, second hand learning and harvard branding, sounds like a fair deal
why didn’t you publish the canard then?
He did/could not turn his VDM group of traders in Amsterdam into a profitable unit. Some of the people who left went on to have successful careers elsewhere. Meanwhile the people who Hilgers thought to be of value to VDM … well, we all know how VDM ended. No wonder he left trading for the clearing business. Optiver Asia was making plenty of money before Hilgers joined. The guy lucked out big time when he was hired by Optiver. Just goes to show how very important luck is.
Hij vertikte het om Nederlands te leren toen ie in Amsterdam werkte, wat er uiteindelijk toe leidde dat ie er zelf uitgegooid werd. Benieuwd of ie dat nu anders aan gaat pakken!
people in optiver wouldn’t tease him about his first wife being found in bed with cabbie, so peace
Internal rockstars like h**s, D***d, M****x, S********n ?
I remember the controversy after we heard what his bonus was in his second year, it was ridiculous.
He was mainly pretending that he was fully responsible for the profits. Holland bought his story. Australia knew better.
does somebody know what these are h**s, D***d, M****x, S********n;
who is kanga and what was bonus for hilgers in second year?
we all know the role of a boss of a prop trading company, give as much bonus as possible to owners…it is not about neither trading nor managing the business…as every trader know better what to do
what about hiring right people, firing wrong people, giving appropriate incentive to retain good people and promote collaborative behavior, recognizing industry trends, appropriate investment to capitalize on those long term trends, setting up right organization structure, stamping out bureaucracy and promoting transparency; seems like you are one of those short term traders who see organization as quarterly pnl number?
Quite a good program to study.
http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/gmp/Pages/default.aspx
if you have money, time and admission, why not
7 weeks on campus http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/gmp/Pages/curriculum.aspx
The $61,000 program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
then that def makes it a fair price
price does not matter to a billionaire ofcourse.
seems to be a constant pointer, that hilgers is a billionaire, does he go around telling people that being a billionaire is the ultimate thing? to make up for his wife being found in bed with a cabbie?
is it true this story of the cabbie?
it’s on this site, take it with a pinch of salt, somebody saying yes or no is not going to change or reveal the truth
not sure having aot or van der moolen on your cv is a good thing!!!!!
baydon fischer – what a cock!
optiver is a partner driven firm, ex-aot, vdm, hbs ceo can’t fuck it up so easily
what’s so cocky about baydon?
why so much hate for Hilgers? I met him a number of times and he seems like a pretty good guy.
Well whatever you say about Hilgers, he’s managed to turn Optiver Sydney around from a place that disgruntled employees left to form Tibra and Eclipse to a place that people want to work. Some ex-Tibra people even work there. Props to him for that, he must be doing at least something right.
“He previously worked for Van der Moolen in Amsterdam and Fortis Clearing in Sydney.”
Mean while at IMC, the Chicago office is being run by a person with a sub 3.0 GPA and the only experience prior to IMC was as a salesperson at Abercrombie & Fitch.
By the name of?
meeting hilgers and working for hilgers ain’t same einstein
and don’t give hilgers so much credit for stopping employee bleeding to tibra and eclipse, tibra is ready to wind down and eclipse almost wound up not too long ago, some ex-tibra work in optiver simply because their ex-employer isn’t what it used to be, so it ain’t hilgers working his miracle, it’s the industry evolving with smaller participants getting squeezed out in the structural decline of the sector and the existing well-run firm monopolizing the remains
what’s gpa got to do with real world success?
and when you say chicago office is being run by, what kind of decisions is this person really making apart from admin?
@9:44 he must be doing something right to get Optiver to the top here:
http://www.brw.com.au/lists/best-places-to-work/2013/
what is the methodology used to make that list and how have the rankings evolved over the years? Also how much decision making effect does hilgers have to reach the top of rankings?
you don’t have to draw open-ended conjectures like ‘he must be doing something right’, you can draw same stupid conclusion when somebody wins a lottery, ‘he must have done something right’, all he did was draw a stupid lottery ticket like million others
It’s produced from anonymous surveys of employees. Tibra managed to get terrible results, particularly in regards to employees’ opinions of management (then they’d try to tell employees it was their own fault).
how can you compare two companies, if it’s not the same person voting for both. You can’t take absolute result from one firm, completely independent result from another firm, and then stack them against each other relatively?
“meeting hilgers and working for hilgers ain’t same einstein”
No shit sherlock but you did avoid the question which is why so much hate on this board for Hilgers? Is it jealousy or are there valid reasons?
@12:08 et al why is the idea that Hilgers might actually be doing his job as a manager so offensive to you lot? I mean he could well be a goon, taxi drivers might be a better fuck than him, he could well be paid more than he’s worth.
What I do not understand why Hilgers becoming CEO is so problematic. Is it because he will make a good amount of money and the people complaining don’t? That’s just simply pathetic…
Give him a break and at the mean time try something new: stop complaining and try to be successful.
calm down einstein, go talk to my friend watson, even he can tell you that you are now trying to deflect attention away from your rather brilliant conclusion ‘I met him a number of times and he seems like a pretty good guy’
about why so much hate on this board for Hilgers, there is never one reason for these things, you mentioned one – jealousy; other reasons have been thrown about on this forum – firing traders at VDM, being german, being billionaire, being hbs, being ex-aot, being ex-vdm, not reacting well when people teased him about his wife being found in bed with cabbie etc etc
the idea that Hilgers might actually be doing his job as a manager is not offensive at all, in all honesty it’s quite likely given that he has got promotion as a ceo, what is puzzling though is this lack of recognition for the notion that this all might be just luck, being in right place, right time, it’s very possible you are as smart as hilgers and can do better job as an optiver ceo, but that ain’t happening right
Last time I checked there were more than 100 people working in Optiver Sydney. Blaming everything that goes wrong on a CEO is just as stupid as praising the CEO for everything that goes right. Optiver best employer? Maybe they have a great HR department? Optiver making money? Maybe they’ve got good traders with the support of a brilliant IT department. The best thing a CEO in such circumstances can do is not get in the way. Hilgers is doing a good job of that. But saying Optiver Sydney is so successful because of him ignores all the other people that contributed to this success.
A lot can depend on when to micro-manage and when to delegate, how to motivate employees and get the organization to perform as a whole, leadership skills are thus not straight forward algorithm, hbs ofcourse charges big bucks to help executives to gain these skills, the roi on that investment is ofcourse not measurable
‘some ex-tibra work in optiver simply because their ex-employer isn’t what it used to be’
Quite surprised that optiver would hire from the competitor, given their culture of hiring and honing talent straight out of school
you are confusing trading department with the rest of the firm, they wouldn’t hire traders laterally, rest goes
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25618683
Was that Tim?
no?
any color on mako or pelagus?
“Last time I checked there were more than 100 people working in Optiver Sydney”
It’s closer to 200
re baydon.. hes going to chicago, not china
why would somebody give up aussie shores for chicago chills, lol, baydon seemed such a smart guy, haha
Optiver Chicago culture was lax and laid back untill all the aussies were shafted and the current rockstar MD was brought in to crack the whip.
If Baydon goes there, it is going to be a lets party culture again.
Wonder how the shop hakuna matata is doing ?
who is this rockstar MD and why was he asked to crack the whip, fallout of oil banging?
hakuna matata,
no problems, no worries
Sorry but the whip wasn´t cracked by the current MD but by his predecessor.
who was that, the dutch lady mariane or something?
@10:49 nice dribble buddy, there was only about 4 Aussies ever in the optiver chicago office and none of them were in senior management positions. The CEO and head of trading in chicago have always been European. But nice attempt at criticizing someone who has started their own company and has grown to 70 people in the first 3 years. Has is your start up going? Making the big bucks I guess
who has started their own company and grown to 70 people in first 3 years?
why is there always dick size contest in terms of the net worth?
IMC Zug did this
what did imc zug do?
Nothing to do with dick size, more just some uninformed jerk having a crack at successful people. Baydon is a real family man, don’t know where the party culture reference comes from and no Aussies were shafted from Optiver Chicago
just because he doesn’t have as much as money as you have, you think he is not as informed as you?
have you checked baydon’s facebook, i thought you were well informed?
Yes, checking someone’s Facebook photos is just as informed as actually knowing someone. No more troll feeding for today
ah, you my friend jumped on conclusion again, the point in discussion was ‘don’t know where the party culture reference comes from’, not on actual facts, which only baydon would be privy of, are you sure this is nothing to do with your large size?
Baydon is a rock star, not really a trader, but good for attracting young graduates who want to become like him one day…
how do you mean not really a trader? what was his track record on the trading desk or with his personal investments?