FinXplorer Speaker Series-Talk#1

The NUS MBA Finance Club Activities kicked off to a rousing start for the Academic Year 2007-08 with its marquee event FinExplorer Speaker Series. The Finance Club invites industry experts as part of this series to share their career experiences and current industry trends with the students. Mr. William Shropshire, Head , Derivatives Structure & Sales- JP Morgan, Singapore, was generous enough to spend one such evening , talking about his fifteen years of experience as a derivatives trader across a range of asset classes, with aspiring I-Bankers and number crunching FinKids.

Mr. Shropshire’s talk was sprinkled with interesting anecdotes right from the days when he hit the trading floor in 1992 at Midland Banks in London. Over the fifteen years period he has monitored Trading desk in London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. He talked about his experiences dealing with the Energy Derivatives in New York particularly during the Enron Fiasco. He later moved to JP Morgan in Structure and Sales for Asia in Foreign Exchange. Mr. Shropshire recollected his challenges about the JP Morgan’s sub optimal performance in Forex market until that point and the Asian Financial Crisis that gripped the ASEAN countries.

Mr. Shropshire succinctly illustrated the coherent working style of Trading, Sales, and Structuring Desks at JP Morgan. He emphasized on the dynamics and at times the frictional forces that work between the trading and the sales team. He gave an overview to the students about how the rapidly changing market forces govern the impromptu decision making and uncanny knack of a trader in making or breaking a deal.

Some of the interesting queries from the Students that drove the discussion further were the motivation factor besides money that drives trader, Opportunities for non- quantitative people in Structuring Team and comparing exit options for a trader to that of a corporate finance professional. Mr. Shropshire pointed out “Passion to see immediate results” as paramount driving force that kept him going in this profession. He further referred to the team bonding and camaraderie that goes in entire deal making process as another motivation in this profession. He was forthright in his opinion that indeed a Trader is always a trader unlike Corporate Finance professionals who can explore diversity in their profile.

Towards the end he summed up his passion for Trading by stating,” If I wouldn’t have been a trader in a suit and a tie, I would have been trading in a fish market.”

Mr. Shropshire was accompanied by Ms Cynthia Tan, Vice President, Forex Structuring and Sales at JP Morgan, Ms Janet and Ms Jessica, both HR Executives from JP Morgan, to have offline discussions with students. The talk was followed by light refreshment cum interaction sessions where students could put forth their career related queries and gain insight on JP Morgan culture. The talk was highly appreciated by the NUS MBA Finance club members. It was a refreshing break from the tread-of-the-mill recruitment talks. Not often does it happen that you have such highly placed executives from reputed investment banks come to talk to a small group of students about their career-journey and personal experiences. We are already looking forward to the next-in-the-series talk by Mr.Vijay Sivaram of Citibank who heads the Distribution Strategy and Expansion Team there.

Contributed By: Adarsh Abhineet, MBA-2007 Cohort