Testimonials

As always, the conference was great. I personally find WBS events exceptional in our industry because of the (rare) combination of cutting edge topics and leading experts with a friendly and homely environment.

Fabrizio Anfuso:

Traded Risk Measurement, PRA, Bank of England

Fabrizio Anfuso: Traded Risk Measurement, PRA, Bank of England

Fabrizio is a leading expert in developing complex risk analytics, quantitative modelling and financial regulations. He has an extensive track-record of heading quant teams onshore and offshore, as well as of taking part in firm-wide programs, such as IMM, BCBS-IOSCO Margin Requirements and IBOR transition.
In his present and previous roles, Fabrizio has gained a comprehensive knowledge of the full model development cycle, including the model design, the validation of model performance, the IT implementation and the attainment of regulatory compliance.
His main areas of expertise are Counterparty credit risk, Monte Carlo simulations, Internal Models for the trading book (IMM and IMA), derivatives pricing, CCPs & collateral modelling, Initial Margin methodologies and regulatory capital.
Fabrizio is chairing the master’s course in Counterparty Credit Risk of the ETH / University of Zurich and taught a number of advanced professional trainings in topics such as CCR, capital management and Initial Margin methodologies.
As part of his academic activities, he has authored numerous research articles in the fields of quantitative finance and condensed matter physics. Fabrizio holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden).

Very high level of speakers, in a friendly and sociable setting. Perfect for content as well as networking!

Svetlana Borovkova:

Head of Quantitative Modelling, Probability & Partners. Associate Prof, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Svetlana Borovkova: Head of Quantitative Modelling, Probability & Partners and Associate Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Currently Head of Quantitative Modelling at Probability & Partners and Associate Professor at Vrije University Amsterdam, Dr Svetlana Borovkova has specialized in applying mathematical and statistical methods to problems within quantitative finance and risk management.

Dr Borovkova’s research extends in many areas, such as news analytics for finance, derivatives pricing, commodity markets and risk management in the face of new regulation. She is also a consultant for the Dutch Central Bank and the founder and principal consultant of DataDecisions: Financial Risk Consultancy.

Dr Borovkova is a frequent speaker on international conferences, such as Global Derivatives, Risk Minds, Bachelier Congress for Mathematical Finance, Sentiment Analysis and Behavioural Finance and others.

Previously she held an assistant professor position in Delft University of Technology and a trading analyst position in Shell Trading, London.

She got her PhD in 1998 from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Oregon State University, USA and MSc degree in applied mathematics and computer science from Moscow and Utrecht.

Thanks a lot for organizing this year’s event. Everything was perfect, great people, great talks, location, hope to come back soon!

Elias Daboussi:

Quantitative Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Elias Daboussi: Quantitative Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Elias Daboussi is a quantitative analyst at Bank of America since 2016. After graduating from University Paris-Diderot and Supelec in 2014, he has specialized in the Rates and Hybrids area, first in the Model Risk Management Group, and now as part of the Quantitative Strategies Group.

Thank you for a great conference, it was fantastic to meet in person again!

Ioana Boier:

Ioana Boier:

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University. In addition, I have completed graduate coursework in Financial Mathematics at NYU and Big Data at Harvard University. Prior to joining Citadel, I was a Director in the Global Markets Division at BNP Paribas where I managed the Interest Rate Options & Inflation quantitative research team. Before transitioning into Finance, I was a research staff member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.

Events by WBS are truly a great opportunity for quant and risk experts to discuss crucial issues in finance. The informal touch designed by you adds to the atmosphere where we all can share on how to tackle some of the most pressing challenges both in banking and event management

Anastasia Yachmeniova:

SVP, Strategy & ESG, CompatibL

Anastasia Yachmeniova: SVP, Strategy & ESG, CompatibL

I’ve very much enjoyed WBS events whenever I’ve attended them or presented my research at them. WBS events provide an excellent place to network with both financial market practitioners and academics. I’ve always learnt a lot from the presentations at WBS events.

Saeed Amen

Turnleaf Analytics / Cuemacro / Visiting Lecturer at QMUL

Saeed Amen: Turnleaf Analytics / Cuemacro / Visiting Lecturer at QMUL

Saeed has a decade of experience creating and successfully running systematic trading models at Lehman Brothers and Nomura. He is the founder of Cuemacro, Cuemacro is a company focused on understanding macro markets from a quantitative perspective. He is the author of ‘Trading Thalesians – What the ancient world can teach us about trading today’ (Palgrave Macmillan), and graduated with a first class honours master’s degree from Imperial College in Mathematics& Computer Science.

Thank you very much for organising this amazing conference – as I mentioned before, somehow you always manage to improve on the previous year!

Alexei Kondratyev:

Quantitative Research & Development Lead, ADIA

Alexei Kondratyev: Quantitative Research & Development Lead, ADIA

Alexei Kondratyev is Quantitative Research and Development Lead at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). Prior to joining ADIA in July 2021, he held quantitative research and data analytics positions at Standard Chartered, Barclays Capital and Dresdner Bank. Alexei holds MSc in Theoretical Physics from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev and PhD in Mathematical Physics from the Institute for Mathematics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was the recipient of 2019 Risk magazine Quant of the Year award.

“Thank you it was really fun! and the presentations were fantastic!”

Vladimir Piterbarg:

MD, Head of Quantitative Analytics and Quantitative Development, NatWest Markets

Vladimir Piterbarg: MD, Head of Quantitative Analytics and Quantitative Development at NatWest Markets

“The WBS Quantitative Finance Conference is – as always – a great event to network and talk about recent developments like ML in quantitative finance. The organizers create an atmosphere which makes it easy to get in touch with the speakers and discuss about the talks. As usual a very informative and inspiring event! Please go on this way!”

Jörg Kienitz:

Quantitative Finance and Machine Learning, Acadiasoft

Jörg Kienitz: Quantitative Finance and Machine Learning (Acadiasoft), Partner (Quaternion), Adjunct Prof (UCT), Assistant Prof (BUW)

Jörg Kienitz is a partner at Quaternion, Acadia’s Quant Services division. He owns the finciraptor.de website – an educational platform for Quantitative Finance and Machine Learning. Jörg consults on the development, implementation, and validation of quantitative models. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wuppertal and an Adjunct Associate Professor in AIFMRM at the University of Cape Town. He regularly addresses major conferences, including Quant Minds, RISK or the WBS Quant Conference. Jörg has authored four books, Monte Carlo Frameworks (with Daniel J. Duffy), Financial Modelling (with Daniel Wetterau), and Interest Rate Derivatives Explained I and II (with Peter Caspers). He also co-authored research articles that appeared in leading journals like Quantitative Finance, RISK or Mathematics in Industry.

I was one of the speakers at the conference but had an opportunity to attend other talks as well and enjoyed them thoroughly. The topics were well-chosen and relevant, the three tracks were well-organized and the speakers were extremely impressive. Great conference!

Achin Agarwal:

Director, Algo One AI and Head of Quant Research, First Global

Achin Agarwal: Director, Algo One AI and Head of Quant Research, First Global

With research interests ranging from varied investment styles to modern artificial intelligence methods, to statistically significant adaptive ensembles, he has built scalable quantitative models that invest across a wide range of asset classes and in multiple geographies and has successfully managed global funds over a decade.

He has been extensively involved in research in various fields of mathematics and artificial intelligence, including deep learning, natural language processing, genetic algorithms, distributed computing, and their applications in asset management.

He has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India where he was featured in the Director’s Merit List and Bachelors in Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India where he stood in the top percentile of the graduating class.