High frequency job transfers

There have been a lot of interesting job transfers involving trading firms IMC, Optiver and DRW. Looks a bit like the football transfer window  – a lot of movement in January. The Premier League transfers will receive enough attention already. In contrast to the football pitch, most traders remain loyal for many years. Here are January’s most eye-catching transfers in trading world.

Steven Hamilton (DRW) to London Stock Exchange

One curious transfer made the head of DRW‘s London office, Steven Hamilton. He moved to London Stock Exchange’ fixed income platform, CurveGlobal. DRW is one of the major traders in fixed income derivative market. Steven Hamilton will be part of the business development team, responsible for prop traders and market makers.

CurveGlobal isn’t a household name, yet. CurveGlobal is a venture by the LSE with six major dealer banks and the CBOE. It aims to fight the duopoly that Deutsche Boerse and ICE have in Bund, Bobl, Schatz and Gilts futures. Expected to go live in second quarter of this year. Press release from October 2015, and more colour on this on Bloomberg by John Detrixhe.

Gerben Gooijers (Optiver) to Semiotic Labs

Gerben Gooijers was CIO at the Amsterdam office of Optiver. Earlier he was two years head IT in Optiver Chicago (not during Hammergate). After more than a decade with Optiver, where he started as trader, he left the firm few months ago. Following a brief period of gardening, he co-founded Semiotic Labs – nice website.

Not surprisingly, Semiotic Labs is an IT startup. To be more specific, a data science startup – in a completely different field than financial instruments. The company predicts when and why industrial equipment (trains, cranes) fail. Semiotic Labs uses machine learning to analyze sensor data, to help firms prevent unplanned downtime and do timely maintenance. Not too late, but also not too early.

Already have paying customers and with job openings for more data scientists. Also cool – artificial intelligence guru Stuart Russell (wiki) is advising them.

Korneel Duyvesteyn (IMC) to Hartwig Medical Foundation

Hartwho? Hartwig Medical Foundation. The co-founder and CEO of IMC, Rob Defares is involved in several initiatives to combat cancer.

Not only by donating money, but taking new groundbreaking initiatives together with university hospitals in battling the disease. Defares founded Hartwig Medical last year (2015). The foundation facilitates research at DNA by doing whole genome sequencing of cancer patients. I understand this is key in tailor-made treatment of the disease. Read more on the (Dutch) website.

In the advisory board we find well-known scientist Robert Dijkgraaf. Korneel Duyvesteyn has been a trader at IMC and last years was Trading Lead in Amsterdam office. One morning every few months he did some things for Hartwig.

When Korneel Duyvesteyn quit IMC, he spent a whole summer gardening. While orienting for a new job, Rob Defares asked his former IMC employee for Hartwig Medical. Not enthusiast at first – no medical background – he was convinced to do it. IT remains IT, and word is he did a crash course on genomics. A smart guy moving from the trading business to help fighting cancer. No more bonus, but a job switch doesn’t get more sympathetic than this.