What degree did you study at university?
Bsc in Engineering in Chemical Engineering (UCT), Master of Commerce in Risk Management of Financial Markets (UCT).
What is your role at Nedbank?
Quantitative Analyst trainee. I am currently part of the data analytics and science team within the business banking unit. I am using machine learning techniques to build a next-best-interaction model.
Can you tell us why you chose this career?
I chose to work in the banking industry as I have an interest in financial markets and finance. I find the work that quants do is challenging but really rewarding.
What’s a typical day like in your job?
Every day is quite different for me- I am working on a 6 month long project so some days involve me writing up some code in R while others I find myself on Udemy the whole day learning new techniques and concepts that I can implement in my project.
What are the some of the highlights and challenges of your role?
The challenges of my role have been adapting to a new team and just figuring out where to start. I found that I needed to learn a lot (like to code in R, some machine learning concepts) before I could even start my project. Highlight is seeing how much I’ve learnt in a short period of time. The team I work for also make the days brighter!
How do you keep up to date with all the changes in your profession?
Nedbank has a risk business school which gives seminars throughout the year on different concepts used in the quants field. These are really great for getting a view on what quants do and how Nedbank is adapting to changes. In addition to this, I’m a firm believer in reading: the news, articles, LinkedIn posts etc. Read often and a lot to get idea of changes not only within the quants field but all fields.
What do you enjoy doing for fun outside of the office?
Big fan of running and all things active. Finding new restaurants and coffee shops has become a weekend standard since relocating to JHB.