The One (Quant) That Got Away
Episode description
As I am building a risk management department I am also building the smaller teams within which include model development, model validation, enterprise risk management, and governance. Two of the most critical people are those who lead model development and model validation. Finding technically competent quants is hard enough but requiring they can be a leader, mentor, and teacher is nearly impossible. From my personal work I have found one such person who would have done amazing at either development or validation. They are an industry expert in credit risk and modeling, can do all the work on their own when required, and are great at teaching (they have taught me much of what I know in credit risk). After months of discussions and waiting for the bonus season to come at the big banks, they finally got a long over due promotion. They will make more money than I can pay them, do not have to learn any new languages (python), and have great job stability. While I was sad I couldn't get them to work for me I completely understand their decision and would have made the same one. We are still great friends and stay in touch regardless of this decision.