Ronnie Wexler, Global Head of Equities Distribution, Barclays

[00:00:00] And with us, the client is at the center of everything. And so when we think about businesses, we don't think about sales, trading, structuring as it relates to the client. We think about a team of people working closely together to service the client at the highest level. And so our expectation of the way people behave is that they put the client first and that they're all bought into the client and bought into the firm-to-firm relationship and understand the big picture.

[00:00:27] Hello, this is Dean Curnutt, and welcome to the Alpha Exchange, where we explore topics in financial markets associated with managing risk, generating return, and the deployment of capital in the alternative investment industry. It was a pleasure to host a discussion with Ronnie Wexler, Global Head of Equities Distribution at Barclays, and solicit his insights on change in markets, in client relationships,

[00:00:56] and in the growing role of technology across the financial ecosystem. We began with Ronnie's early days at Goldman Sachs during the final stages of the tech bubble and the sharp market reversal that followed. He reflects on how periods of market stress from the post.com bear market to the GFC have shaped his perspective on risk and the importance of being adaptable in markets that are constantly moving. The conversation then turns to the changing structure of institutional investing.

[00:01:26] Ronnie discusses the growth of hedge funds in pursuit of industrial-scale alpha generation, highlighting how client needs have become increasingly cross-asset and solutions-oriented. He explains how a sell-side equities business today functions as an integrated ecosystem that spans prime brokerage, derivatives, electronic trading, and financing. A major theme throughout the discussion is the accelerating pace of technological change.

[00:01:52] Ronnie describes recent experiences using AI development tools and outlines how firms are integrating them into workflows, ranging from onboarding and automation to research distribution and client analytics. We also explore the rise of bespoke and OTC solutions, including QIS, custom baskets, and exotic option structures. Here, Ronnie emphasizes that these products reflect broader changes in market structure,

[00:02:20] positioning, and risk transfer across institutional portfolios. The conversation concludes with thoughts on recruiting, apprenticeship culture, and the need for firms to balance human judgment with increasing technological infrastructure. I hope you enjoy this episode of the Alpha Exchange, my conversation with Ronnie Wexler. My guest today on the Alpha Exchange is Ronnie Wexler. He is the global head of equities distribution at Barclays,

[00:02:47] and someone I've had the pleasure of knowing for more than two decades now. Ronnie, it's great to welcome you to the podcast. It's amazing to be here. You've been an amazing mentor to me. I'm very proud of your journey and being your friend, and so it's only fitting that the first ever non-Barclays external podcast that I do is the Alpha Exchange with you. Well, I tell people, I knew you when. We met back in 2006 through our dear friend, John Calico, so I credit him for the introduction.

[00:03:17] It's great to be hosting this. Two decades, gosh, how much has changed in markets? And that's really going to be the basis of our conversation today, which is change. Whether you like it or not, change is coming your way. Faster than you can imagine. Through the lens of change, we're going to get your insights on clients, on technology and innovation, on human capital development, recruiting,

[00:03:43] and then how you think about alignment across sales, trading, research, quant. So we'll have plenty to talk about. And as we think about change, there's nothing coming at us quicker than AI. And so you're just back from a management offsite. I want to say it was in Europe, maybe London? Yeah. It was outside of London in the UK countryside, which was a great setting to really dig in to AI

[00:04:11] because like the juxtaposition of the new technology in the old world just made it feel even more surreal. But we got to use Claude Code and Vibe Code as a management team for the first time. And I have to tell you, I can't stop thinking about it. This is mind-bending stuff. It was a true singularity moment for me. And I just can't believe what this technology can do. I asked this technology to... I'm not going to be perfectly specific on some of the things we used it for,

[00:04:39] but I asked this technology to do a big project for me. Big tech project that was something meaningful or could be meaningful for our business. And all I did was type in the prompt, like plain English, please build this for me, use these parameters. It only had access to publicly available data. I hit go, went to the other room, grabbed lunch, sat down, ate for 12 minutes, came back. And I had this mind-blowing system built

[00:05:07] that would have taken lots of people, lots of time to sort of do this traditionally. And then we kind of went around the room and everybody had their own project and everyone had the same reaction. Just unbelievable. What a productivity hack. And just what an incredible builder. It's basically, it will, as it becomes mainstream, make us all developers, make us all very tech forward, able to create new things on the fly

[00:05:37] that benefit our clients, benefit our business, benefit us in our personal lives. It became very clear to me last week that the world is forever changed. It's moving incredibly fast and everybody needs to be focused on what it means for them, their business, and everything in their life. So as we have this conversation, certainly this path-breaking technology is going to be in the background and very relevant to a lot of what we discuss. Let's go backwards.

[00:06:06] Let's go back to the early days in your career because having some sense of the starting point and being able to evaluate just how much has changed throughout your own career will be helpful. So take us back to the early days for you, how you got your start in the industry, how it led into this leadership role at Barclays. Sure. So I was lucky enough to be in the summer internship program in sales and trading at Goldman Sachs

[00:06:34] the summer of 2000, so 26 years ago. Feels like yesterday, but it was actually 26 years ago. And then I came on full-time at Goldman Sachs and spent the majority of my time in the industry there. One thing I can tell you as it relates to change and just as it relates to how the industry has evolved is that there have always been what felt like these existential threats. When I started in the business, it was like decimalization. And this business will never be as good

[00:07:03] as it was five years ago because of decimalization or because of computers or because of these different shifts. And what I can tell you is I was always enjoying my journey and I was always having fun with it. So I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about these different existential threats that came up year after year after year. And I think that was a huge benefit to me because the industry went through its ups and downs, but over the arc of time, it just got better and better and better.

[00:07:31] And so if you look at the shape of these businesses today versus 25 years ago, they're very different as far as how the revenue is made. But if you look at it from a pure revenue perspective, they're as big as they've ever been. And so when I just think about the arc of my career and I think about the moment in time that we're in right now, if I had paid attention to a lot of the quote existential threats that were thrown at us throughout the last 25 years, I don't know that I would have been as enthusiastic

[00:08:00] about the work and what we were doing and the journey. And so I'm glad I was able to block that out. I'm paid enough attention to it, but glad I was able to block that out. But look, the world is constantly changing. And that's what makes these jobs so interesting. That's what make markets so interesting. And if you're passionate about that, you'll find a way. You'll find a way to bring your business to the right place. You'll find a way to help your clients in the right ways. As long as you enjoy it and you have fun doing it every day and you take it seriously,

[00:08:29] the sky's the limit in these businesses. And I think the best days, despite all the existential threats that keep popping up, are ahead of us. Take us back to some of the early days in your career. You're hitting an equity derivatives desk at Goldman Sachs. You mentioned the training program being the summer of 2000. So the tech bubble is literally imploding. It's a two plus year bear market in equities that's coming. It was still inflating at that moment.

[00:08:58] It was showing signs of imploding. But then like September, October, it really imploded. The difference between my internship experience and then what I showed up to a year later was just a completely different vibe, completely different mindset. We were in a scarcity moment versus what had been like a moment of abundance, which just felt like the day before. The industry went through some stuff. 9-11 happened. A lot of the different Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing frauds happened.

[00:09:28] And so the industry went through a period of retrenchment. And I just remember thinking, I can't believe we went from there to this so quickly. It's just a reminder that the world can change fast. It taught me a lot about being open-minded. It taught me a lot about being curious. It taught me a lot about just the appreciation of how quickly things can change and the importance of doing good work and understanding the risk factors. That was one of the things that really stuck with me early

[00:09:56] because leaving the internship in August 2000 and then showing up in July 2001, it just felt like a completely different world. So I look back at that time, I felt like at least from a sell-side standpoint, a lot of folks had almost given up. That bear market was so long. And I thought, yeah, this is an edge. Clients are telling me that no one else is calling them. And I thought there was a certain kind of negativity

[00:10:24] built into that two-year equities bear market. Give us a little bit more of a sense as to the maybe formative, whether it's people, events, the early part of your career where you felt like there was a step function in terms of your own development. I'd love to learn more about that. Sure. I've always naturally gravitated towards really positive people, very open-minded people. It's part of why I think you and I have such a special friendship. But back then,

[00:10:52] you talk about the experience through the client lens. I experienced it from an apprenticeship culture lens. And a lot of the people that I was working for that I was trying to emulate would say things to me like, sorry, kid, you missed it. Hang out for two years, go to business school, figure out something else to do with your life. And that was a bit jarring to hear early on. I'm 22, 23 years old and I'm hearing things like that. And I just blocked it out. I was having the best time. I had built amazing friendships in my analyst class.

[00:11:22] Goldman Sachs was such an exciting place to be. I was learning nonstop. And I just kind of blocked it out and viewed it as an opportunity to really dig in, establish myself, build client relationships, learn about markets outside of my core competency. And then as the world evolved and the leadership changed and a lot of people kind of left the business, when the resurgence happened, I was unbelievably well positioned. And I had built loyalty with the positive energy people that were ahead of me

[00:11:51] and went on to run the equities business and run other businesses at Goldman Sachs. And they looked at me favorably for that period of time. And they kept giving me new challenges, new opportunities, asking me to fix some of the most acute problems in the business. And that just ended up working out really well. Like that set me up for a truly magical journey. And it was just, maybe I was a bit naive. Maybe I had a little vision that others didn't. But the truth is, I just really enjoyed what I did every day.

[00:12:20] And so I showed up ready to play at every moment. And consistency of that really helped me end up in a good spot. Let's just stay with Ronnie Wexler, the salesperson for a little bit longer, because that's a big part of leading you into this role at Barclays. And of course, you're a markets junkie at your heart. You love the products. You love the clients. You love the situations. For better or for worse.

[00:12:48] So you've covered accounts through just gigantic drawdowns, crisis events, through low vol periods as well. And I'm curious, maybe you could reflect back on just the totality of your experience covering clients and try to bring to life for us how your coverage style might have changed through, again, these just different periods where the market's either very risk-aware or humming along

[00:13:16] in a very benign VIX environment. Yeah. So I think what's super interesting is that when markets are quiet and everything's okay, people tend to complain about how boring it is. But then when they're not quiet and you're in crisis moments or moments of stress, that feels pretty stressful. I think over time, I've just learned to kind of balance it all out and see the big picture. But as it relates to covering clients, what I realized, certainly through parts of my early journey

[00:13:47] with just the protracted bear market, but then really through the financial crisis, is it all starts with a client and it all starts with the client and the markets and what they're trying to achieve and how you can help them. What mega trends you can be ahead of the curve for them on. What risks you can be ahead of the curve for them on. How you can be a real partner to them when they need to make the three to five really important portfolio decisions a year. So I always took that to heart. But what I learned in the financial crisis is that clients have market risk,

[00:14:16] they also have business risk. And so how do you help them think about their business risk? Like how do you help them think about the tail scenarios that can really hurt them? How do you help them think about the probabilities of remote risk that can really hurt them? And then how do you also help them think about the right tail? Like how do you help them think about the mega trend that they're not paying enough attention to that if they don't start to dig into could cause them to outperform in the future? And so for me, it's always been about the client. It's always been about the markets.

[00:14:45] It's always been about the curiosity. I really love this stuff. And solving the puzzle and trying to figure out what the good trades are going to be in any given year, any given moment, or how markets are going to react to the environment is sort of the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning really excited. But then I was lucky. I was able to apply that in building really deep client relationships that have stood for 20 plus years where we're in the intellectual pursuit together.

[00:15:14] And I sit in an amazing seat. I see a lot of incredible things. I speak to a lot of brilliant investors. And I just consider my ecosystem something that I invest in heavily and all the people that I'm close to that I've covered for a long time, all of our clients, I take the job of helping them solve the puzzle of markets and helping them ensure that they're as safe in running their business

[00:15:44] as they possibly can be as anybody in the industry. And it's what I thrive on. You mentioned Global Crossing, WorldCom, and that 2002 credit cycle. Of course, Enron as well, the 25-year anniversary of Chanos uncovering that fraud. But 2002 was this period of the advent of the cap structure arbitrage trade. The buy-puts-sell-CDS trade. And here's what I just want you to reflect on as we start

[00:16:13] to really dive into your role at Barclays is that you've grown up with a very cross-asset DNA that looking across the capital structure for risks that are not the same but are very related and looking for mispricings has been something that you were really trained under. I'd love to just have you talk about that a little bit as we get into your role at Barclays because a lot of what you're doing there is integration across asset

[00:16:42] classes as well. So tell us about that kind of cross-asset upbringing. Yeah. So it was a bit of trial by fire. It was a bit of trial and error. We noticed on the equity derivatives desk that clients were coming in who we didn't know that and were buying way out of the money puts in autos and airlines. Like things that just historically like didn't happen. It was like we almost didn't know how to price it. Like why would somebody want to buy a 25% of spot 18 month put and they're like okay if you look

[00:17:12] at this from a traditional equity derivatives lens if you just model this from a traditional equity derivatives perspective you're supposed to sell those puts at that price because it's very rich to fair value. But then there was a whole other side of the trade and then they would be transacting with us on the credit side of the house and selling CDS and creating this relative value trade that had a lot of value in it for them. So we kind of started spinning on it realizing what was happening and decided we wanted to really

[00:17:42] be able to help our clients as the intersection of capital structure investing arbitrage really started to take shape at that point. And so the firm had the foresight to create what became the cross asset sales desk and I was an original member of that desk and we moved to the credit floor and we covered clients for everything across credit investing and equity investing and really focused on this client base that was emerging and we were ahead of the curve in doing it. And what I

[00:18:12] learned going from having spent, this was 2006, so five years in equities and equity derivatives and convertibles at that point to then learning about credit investing and learning about credit derivatives and learning about CDS and then helping clients on both sides of the journey and helping the firm just learn and get smart about it. It was an unbelievable experience and that's kind of how it all happened but that then opened my eyes to risk factors,

[00:18:41] business risk, but also really just how the world is very interconnected. You think if you could just sit in your silo and sit in your zone and be expert at that, that everything will work out but the truth is and increasingly since then, there are so many exogenous factors that matter in how you manage risk, how you allocate capital, how you think about the way the world's going to change and shift that I got to see it on the front lines at a very young age and get steeped in it ahead of a very difficult period

[00:19:10] where we had a crisis that was actually born of the credit markets. Yeah, for sure. Your time at Goldman was through the past 2010 into 2015 or so. Tell us, and of course you did some work in crypto for Stone Ridge, another dear friend of ours, Ross Stevens, founder of that firm. Tell us about how you came across Barclays, the business plan that you effectively sought to put in place

[00:19:39] as you started that conversation. Sure, so look, I spent almost 19 years at Goldman Sachs doing various roles and just had a really incredible experience learning about the business, growing within the business. Then I had the opportunity to work with Ross and team to do something entrepreneurial, which was another just incredible experience. It was born out of my curiosity in markets. Crypto was an emerging thing. The more time I spent on it, the more interested I

[00:20:09] was in it. And the idea of trying to help a team build a business almost from the ground up was something that I was very lucky to get to try and get to do. interesting because it was a combination of business building and really being steeped in capital markets and close to the client base that I loved. And it was a business that had incredible

[00:20:39] potential but needed a little bit of, just needed a new strategy, needed new leadership. And I felt uniquely positioned to do it because I'd had the traditional Wall Street experience and then I'd had the entrepreneurial experience which teaches you all kinds of new skills. Your antenna goes up to totally different risks. You think about building businesses in different ways. You think about everything in different ways. And so the confluence of those two experiences set me up in hindsight.

[00:21:08] I'm approaching my three-year anniversary here at Barclays really well. I built instincts that I probably hadn't had just during my Goldman journey. It's helped me focus on really truly the things that matter to help get this business to the place that it is today and we're proud of the growth of it. But again, life is a journey. As long as you're constantly learning, I think it continues to set you up better and better for whatever comes next. And I feel very fortunate to have experienced that

[00:21:38] in my path to this point. Well, we said we're going to really evaluate change. Your role is global head of equities distribution and the distribution part is really all about clients. And so I'd love to start there and ask you to give us some background on the global client base at Barclays. Give us a sense as to what that looks like right now. Sure. The world has changed and evolved a lot. There have definitely been periods where

[00:22:08] the hedge fund industry was on the back foot. We're in a totally different period now. Hedge fund AUM is north of five trillion dollars. And if you look at two major contributors to that, it's the growth of the multi-managers, it's the growth of the quant funds. If you look back, multi-managers in 2017 were just north of about a hundred billion in AUM. They've cagered at 17% over the last nine years and are pushing half a trillion dollars of AUM. And that's industrial alpha at scale.

[00:22:38] And so with their growth pushing the growth of the industry, they have different need than some of the previous players in the industry. And so it's forced the entire industry to evolve and change. And if you think about the quant funds, we spoke about AI and cloud code earlier, what they've been able to do, the alpha they've been able to generate, close to 6% alpha versus their benchmark since 2020 is just amazing. And it's attracting a lot of investment. And they're using data sets and

[00:23:07] machine learning and compute. We sit at the intersection of the most sophisticated institutional investors in the world and the most dynamic capital markets that I've been a part of in 25 years. It's an unbelievable unique seat. And the only constant is change. But if you think about what the multi-managers want, when you think about this industrialized alpha at scale, when you think about what these quant funds want, when you think about the rest of our institutional investor base and what they want, it's different

[00:23:37] things pretty consistently, but one thing holds true. different for advised wealth, it's different for quant funds, it's different for traditional asset managers, but all in all, that's a big part of what we do. We have a big content strategy, we want to be ahead of the curve on everything happening, and we want to really help amplify our insights into each one of these institutional investor cohorts

[00:24:07] at every step of the journey. And then what else do they need? They need to be able to execute seamlessly, flawlessly, at scale, globally, across all products within your ecosystem. So when we think about our equities business, we think about the interconnectedness of prime, cash, derivatives, electronic trading, and the different regions, that all needs to function seamlessly in one ecosystem. Equities, when done well, is an ecosystem business, and that's become increasingly more

[00:24:35] important with the changes that I mentioned in the composition of the client base. So for us, it's about how well does the system work? How well does the machine work? What about the consistency of the services we provide? Do we have the resources you need in Asia? Do we have the resources you need in Europe? Do we have the resources you need in the U.S.? Do we tie it together across all products? Are we solutions oriented? And the good news is we're checking all those boxes now, and it's helped our business grow a lot,

[00:25:05] but that's really what matters when you think about the client base. It's going to constantly change. I mentioned the changes we've witnessed over the last bit, but I don't know what this world is going to look like in five years. So for us, it's really important to build an all-weather business that can adjust and adapt to whatever changes come our way, and that really most critically puts us in the best position to service all of these clients over the cycle and over

[00:25:34] many cycles and really help them with their investment process and help them with their outperformance. How would you characterize the manner in which the institutional client base is consuming research and strategy at Barclays versus a decade ago? What insights can you share in terms of where the demand for new ideas is relative to where it was, again, let's say a decade ago? I think it's more important than ever, weirdly. You would think that

[00:26:02] data drives everything, and data is a critical part of our client's journey and our journey. But I think for a while, probably pretty similar to what you kind of went through early in your career when the clients were telling you that nobody was calling them, I think there's been like a bit of a hollowing out of the human touch in the business. A lot of things have moved to typing to each other versus speaking to each other and different themes of communication. For me and for us, and what's a big part of our business is we've just doubled down on that human touch.

[00:26:33] Because our belief is that we live in a world where we're not deciphering signal from noise is more important than it's ever been. And there's so much coming at all of us constantly, social media, traditional media, tons of research. It's just very, very hard to stay on top of it all, and it's never been more important to be able to decipher signal from noise. And we have some incredible analysts in our research group. We have a tactical strategies group that's global, that's just helping the

[00:27:02] clients with the megatrends and the minute-to-minute in and out of the market. We've got desk-based analysts that are very deep in their sectors. We've got specialist salespeople that are very deep in their sectors. We have practitioners that are best in class. And so what I've experienced is that whether it's research or just the entire ecosystem, that traditional touch, that ability to connect with a human being who you have reps with, who you trust in moments where major decisions have to get made,

[00:27:31] is as important as it's ever been. And we're all about that. And we think we're best in class in that human touch and in that connectivity. And we've got really talented people across the ecosystem. And I'm just constantly out on the trading floor, talking to clients, making sure everybody's on the phone with their clients, and just making sure that the right messages get cascaded, particularly like times like this. There's a lot happening in markets.

[00:28:01] It's been a really long year. People are exhausted. But there are major mega trends that I think have tons of momentum. And there are just lots of ways to win out there. And so it's very important that you don't get overly fixated on some bit of noise or some bit of short-termism when there's just a lot to play for if you have perspective. And that permeates the way we approach the business. You mentioned the

[00:28:29] just strong growth in the hedge fund complex not going away, continuing to add lots of capital. It's a global growth, but it's very U.S. centric as well. As you go outside the United States and you travel to Asia, to Europe, it's a different investor base. They consume products differently. Some of them are derivative products that are very different than the U.S. derivative product landscape.

[00:28:58] Talk to us about that. Sure. So look, what I'll say is that every pocket of capital globally in the institutional realm has become so dynamic over the last five or ten years. And so I think they're constantly searching for the best opportunity set. And they're agnostic to asset class or duration or liquidity profile. And so it's a constant journey to meet with these clients and

[00:29:28] understand what they're thinking about and just help them solve their problems and find places to allocate capital. What I'll say is a rising tide lifts all boats. And so this whole AI impulse, this new tech phase shift impulse is driving tons of investment across power, infrastructure, data center build outs, traditional equities, traditional credit, private credit, different hybrid capital solutions,

[00:29:59] commodities. It's just an unbelievably interesting time for every investor that has expertise in these worlds across the globe. And so I find my meetings everywhere I go to be very dynamic and I find the capital to be very global and facile across geographies and different asset classes. What I'll say is Asia is having a massive resurgence. When you look at the

[00:30:28] major growth and a lot of the P&L drivers for, some of the multi -managers, some of the traditional asset managers, and a lot of the quant funds, Asia is the biggest growth engine. And there's been a lot of alpha in those markets for people. And I think it all just comes back to the core megatrend, which is when you think about this new technology phase shift, the geographies that are best positioned are obviously the U.S. We talk a lot about U.S. exceptionalism.

[00:30:57] There's a desire to diversify. But Asia is its own tech nexus. And so people have figured that out. They've gone deep on the opportunity set there. And they've shifted resources and allocated resources and raised even more capital to focus on Asia. And so I would just say watch Asia closely. Some of the best performing stock markets in the world are there. Some of the best performing quant portfolios in the world are there. And it's a true tech nexus. And so as we continue

[00:31:27] with this AI arms race, I think Asia needs to be a very important part of any global investor's toolkit alongside the rest of the world. Opportunities are going to pop up everywhere, but if you're focused on tech, Asia has to be a part of your playbook and we're seeing that. All right. Let's shift to people. So you're running a large team across the globe and these are the frontline folks that are connecting with clients and trying to deliver the resources. I'm curious, again, as we

[00:31:55] use change as the basis of our conversation, I'd love to get your thoughts on change in the manner in which you think about recruiting. So finding the Ronnie Wexler from 2000. 2000. So that's the first one. And then once an individual is in the organization, maximizing the potential that he or she reaches really was able to contribute. What does that look like? So let's first start with recruiting.

[00:32:25] The world's a lot different than it was 25 years ago. We're talking about AI and the degree to which things are quantitative. Talk to us about how you think about recruiting now versus a decade ago. I think about it in a lot of ways, but maybe two of the things that just jump off the page at me is getting the entry-level positioning right for a major firm like Barclays is critical. And so we have internship programs that then feed full-time

[00:32:55] analyst programs that then feed into our ecosystem. And that's incredibly important because this is an apprenticeship culture and the way you come in, the network you come in with and the understanding of the firm and the business that you learn in those training programs is critical to hitting the ground running when you enter one of these roles. And so I take that very seriously, like who are we recruiting? Who are we bringing in for the internship program? And that's also a great

[00:33:24] opportunity to inculcate people in the culture of the firm and just have them rise through the ranks the right way with the right network. Then it's about lateral recruiting and how do you bring in people that make the most sense for your ecosystem that are right for you? In each instance, like quality of human being, do you want to sit next to this person for 12 hours a day? Are they interesting? Are they interested? Those are things that drive a lot for me. And then it's about curiosity. People can learn this industry.

[00:33:53] People can learn the tasks that go into making you good at these jobs. But the question is, will they want to push outside of that? Will they want to focus on the megatrends in the markets? Will they want to focus on things outside of the core competency of their particular job? Those are the people that tend to drive the most outsized change and the most outsized positive expectancy into this ecosystem.

[00:34:22] And so those two things are very important for me. Do you want to sit next to this person for 12 hours a day? And then what's their curiosity quotient? And then as it relates to senior hiring and lateral hiring, we're on a really interesting journey here. We have a very ascendant firm, ascendant global markets franchise, ascendant global equities business. And so who are the people that want to be a part of that for the right reasons? Who are the people that want to be part of this journey, want to be able to focus on their clients, want to be able to

[00:34:51] focus on managing risk if they're on the trading side, want to be focused on building a business and being evaluated in a zone of meritocracy. That's something that's very important to us. And we've been able to attract and recruit some unbelievable lateral talent because they believe in what we're doing. They like the culture of collaboration and they feel like this is the best place to apply their craft and be evaluated with merit. And you mentioned this

[00:35:20] apprenticeship culture as well. I think of just my own career, having a couple people that have been impactful in different ways, whether it's on products or on the big picture of leading a large organization these days. And I think this is, again, some of what we're talking about. There's so much to know. There's so much to learn and you can't just be siloed. It's almost like the salesperson is a microcosm of the fact that there's very few single strategy hedge

[00:35:49] funds anymore. You've got to kind of do everything. And as a salesperson, you kind of have to do everything as well. Link that to the apprenticeship culture and how the young person gets into Barclays and gets exposure across asset classes, across different functional disciplines, et cetera. Sure. Look, I remember showing up at work and being told, read Barron's on the weekend, read the Wall Street Journal every morning, read this

[00:36:19] research, focus on these analysts. And that was what it was like back then. And now just the mediums have changed. The speed of delivery has changed. And so everyone has to figure out what works for them. They should listen to the Alpha Exchange. The podcast mediums are thriving and really a great place to learn and a great place to stay ahead of trends, like figure out which podcasts are interesting to you. We've started a podcast, we have sister podcasts, one out of research called

[00:36:49] The Flipside and one out of markets called The Barclays Brief, which I co-host. And we started that a little bit less than a year ago. And there's great information in there. It's 10 minutes every week or every other week. It's about what we think is the most topical thing in markets at the time. And it's just an unbelievable kind of cheat sheet as to what some senior people in the industry are curating for everybody to focus on. So I think the ability to get up to speed on markets and get up to

[00:37:17] speed on everything that matters for how you allocate capital is much faster, easier and at your fingertips today. So I just encourage everybody to be curious and to find their own medium and to figure out what works for them, but not to let this moment slip away. Because as our chief operating officer who handles a lot of our tech mentioned at our offsite last week, the world is moving, changing by the day. It's never moved and changed so quickly from a

[00:37:47] tech perspective. And that is going to matter for everything markets, life, personal. And so you have to figure out what your toolkit is between the traditional research, traditional media, and then everything else out there, including great podcasts like the Alpha Exchange to just stay ahead of the curve and stay interested and stay curious and help find those things that are going to be defining for you and your clients and the way you allocate

[00:38:16] capital in these changing times. On the Barclays brief, which I'm a listener to, I've seen you talk about AI, I've seen you talk about certainly the credit issues on private credit, some of the concerns there, whether they're overblown or not. How do you wind up thinking about topics? And I can imagine it's also a great opportunity for folks at a senior level to really collaborate. It's a benefit to clients, but I think it's probably also a strong way

[00:38:46] of collaborating internally. Definitely. Look, for our markets management team, picking that topic each week is a collective effort. And so there are moments where the credit markets really matter disproportionately and they're sending a signal that's differentiated from other markets. And so our global head of credit will call me and position that and we'll mobilize a podcast around it. Similarly, everybody takes the intellectual curiosity of it very seriously in curating what is the thing

[00:39:15] that people will want to tune in and listen to that will actually add value that will also display our firm and our thought leadership and a lot of our senior folks and thought leaders in this new medium. I take it very seriously. I'm a total markets junkie, so I kind of live and breathe these things, but I also want to put out timely content that people want to listen to and want to develop a podcast that the world finds value in. So let's talk about products now. These are also

[00:39:45] in constant change. Quantitative investment strategy as a business is a substantial growth area for all of Wall Street and certainly for Barclays specifically. There's products, again, like private credit that are being delivered in different ways. There are tokenized products. There's all kinds of interesting things that are being developed now. I'd love to just learn a little bit more about, as you've gotten into this role,

[00:40:15] some of the new products that you're finding interesting by way of your conversations with clients and how you're investing and growing them. I think we continue to evolve. We continue to evolve in every realm of the business. When I think about new products, it's all about how can you access things that are very, very hard to create on your own. It's this solutions mindset. We think about that in the way we apply our craft in every part of our business and our clients

[00:40:45] really respond to it. But when I think about how some of these different newer parts of the market provide value to clients, if you think about the Quantitative Investment Solutions Toolkit, what is that? that's our IP, our data, our academic literature that we put together to create these strategies that are hard to create and then we deliver them to clients. They basically get to port not only our IP but they get to

[00:41:14] port our ecosystem and our infrastructure in implementing them. And so there's a lot of value in that and we've seen clients really like that stuff and ask for more of it. And so we continue to really build that out and think about more products, improving the platform, doing more bespoke things that are specific to clients and that area of the market just continues to go around the type of risk premium you want to access, the type of risk you want to manage

[00:41:43] and also just thinking about porting our infrastructure to execute different trading strategies that are maybe more cost effective for us to do versus clients to do on their own. It's like this intersection of rules-based value chain back and forth between us and clients and it's something that we're actively investing in and growing and is a big part of our business. And then I think there's a lot of symbiotic kind of risk transfer that goes

[00:42:13] on between us and clients. Part of running a good business and running a good ecosystem is making sure you can recycle risk and you know the cost of getting in and out of different positions and so that is starting to be a bigger thing just in general in the market. And then exotic options. The ability to hedge multiple outcomes at the same time with one product. Coming into the Iran conflict, we put a lot of clients

[00:42:43] into different positions that were oil higher, S&P lower and different versions of things that looked like that. They were just like really interesting risk management tools that they would have been unable to create on their own in the market. And so I think as we continue to live in a world where multiple truths can be true at once, oil can be higher, the stock market can be higher, rates can be higher, the stock market can be higher. I think we're continuing to

[00:43:13] break historical paradigms and break historical correlations in the way we think about the interconnectedness of the world. And so we have a whole suite of what we call light exotic products that are dual binaries, conditional options, things like that that help clients hedge risk or implement multivariable bets that they want to make that fit their portfolio well. So just the customization of it all. Just expect more and more customization and the intersection of

[00:43:42] sell-side firms and investing clients to be more and more partnership oriented in everything that we do. You did a really great job of describing the QIS business and the framing of porting your IP, porting your research, your trading capabilities, and allowing clients to face it directly, whether it's via swap. Some of these things are incredibly complex but also very easy to turn on and off. I never

[00:44:12] thought that QIS would become a flow product. It's not for everybody but it is for some, which just goes to show how quickly the industry evolves and changes and caters to the solutions that the client base wants. Yeah, listen, I'm an early entrant into the variant swap business and I always thought it was so cool that a client could effectively access a Delta-hedged product so cleanly and not have to do anything. And it was really a

[00:44:42] tribute to the notion of comparative advantage where the dealer has just got a cost advantage to doing so and can pass that along. QIS is that on steroids. It's an entire derivatives market that's not lit. It's in the dark. You see a straddle trade on the S&P 500 in listed options. You see VIX options trade. But this entire ecosystem, a very complicated risk, whether they're on the hedging side or the carry

[00:45:12] side. It's large, but you can't see it. And I just wanted you to reflect on that because there's a lot of focus on positioning. We all talk about the big collar that gets rolled and so forth, but that's really the stuff that we see. And your world is that, but also this giant QIS world of things we just can't really see. And I'm just curious when you think through this lit market of listeds and this dark market of

[00:45:41] QIS and the big picture of positioning, how do you think through that? It's a really good question. When I think about it, I come at it from a place of humility, meaning as the world becomes more bespoke and more solutions oriented, more things end up in this dark market versus in the visible market. They end up in the OTC space and the bilateral OTC space versus exchange cleared and visible. And so what does that mean? That is happening at a time where

[00:46:11] the multi-manager AUM unlevered has grown, the multi-manager AUM levered has grown a lot, different quant investment profiles have grown a lot. And so the risk management has become more immediate in markets because what do these large alpha industrial scale players focus on? They focus on alpha and they focus on risk management. And so a lot of times you'll see the market's moving and you can't quite find a headline.

[00:46:40] I remember it'll be two summers ago when we walked in and all of a sudden there was a lot of volatility in Japan and the VIX was printing at very high levels on Monday morning that didn't seem to make a lot of sense. And it forces you to question everything and just try to triangulate around what's driving things. And the truth is you just have to be humble and diversified and risk managed appropriately in a world like this because a lot of

[00:47:10] the invisible flow can really affect markets. And so the way I think about it and the way we think about it is we just have a lot of humility around the possibilities within markets because more and more products are coming into the ecosystem even if they're visible and they're very levered like some of these new ETF products. you don't know what the risk management is going to do without visibility to broader markets in the moment.

[00:47:39] So that's how I think about it. I think about what I tell our investing clients is you just should always have dry powder because you don't know when some dislocation is going to occur just based on positioning or some issue or liquidation in one place that cascades other places because of the risk management I think it's another piece of the puzzle that people need to be very focused on and I personally spend a lot of time thinking about and helping clients

[00:48:08] think through in moments of dislocation. You bring up the August 5th of 2024 VIX event and it's kind of a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan. You get this illiquid session I think there was just a giant rally in the yen after people were just so off sides on positioning and then it flows through to the VIX on an overnight basis so the connectivity is really interesting and you've always got to pay really close

[00:48:38] attention to it. Have to pay very close attention. Humility is the key. Again, signal, noise, and just being prepared for the unexpected. So let's talk about the team and the way in which sales, trading, research, structuring, etc. interact. I think Barclays is a very large organization. You've got a global footprint. It takes a lot.

[00:49:08] You use the term engine. And so in order for the engine to really work, you've really got to synchronize and optimize the way in which the different functional titles interact. I would say that from my old days at Bank of America and having overseen a scuffle here and there between sales and trading, you're a salesperson sitting in between two parties, counterparties that sometimes have disparate interests. And so trying to create alignment is not always the easiest thing, but it's critical.

[00:49:38] So give us the sort of big picture of the client facing businesses and how you bring them together. At a very high level, before we kind of get into the specifics, it's all about your culture and your philosophy. And with us, the client is at the center of everything. And so when we think about businesses, we don't think about sales, trading, structuring as it relates to the client. We think about a team of people working closely together to service

[00:50:08] the client at the highest level. And so our expectation of the way people behave is that they put the client first and that they're all bought into the client and bought into the firm relationship and understand the big picture. And so just by setting the culture right at a high level, we've largely been able to, there's disagreements, but at the end of the day, like the client is our real true north and people do the right thing. And I think that's part of what's helped us grow our business so significantly in recent years. And then like at

[00:50:38] the desk level, at the individual salesperson trader level, you get what you measure. If you get the culture right and you make it very clear to people what you expect of them and where you're trying to grow, it's amazing. Like we've been fortunate in some of the places that we've been trying to grow, custom baskets being a big part of that, in highlighting it and setting the right strategy for it and getting the right collaboration both in terms of sales, trading, and the content piece that goes into it,

[00:51:08] we've been able to grow that product very successfully and that's another bespoke product that's very helpful to clients in implementing risk and hedging risk. And so the irony is like you get what you measure and we care a lot about market share, we care a lot about our client share wallet, we care a lot about, being top five with all of our critical clients at a markets level and certainly at an equities level. And so that mindset permeates our business and because we have a sales versus

[00:51:37] trading mentality. I think in order to survive and thrive, we've had to get that very right. I can proudly say that I referee almost zero sales versus trading death matches today and that used to be a big part of my job 10 or 15 years ago. So measuring the attribution of a client on a single desk is never that straightforward, especially when you deal with derivatives and loss ratios and so forth. It can get a little tricky,

[00:52:06] but when you do it around the world and across products, it gets especially challenging. Tell us a little bit about how you think about attribution from a global standpoint for a client who's touching different businesses in different geographies. This is a multivariable answer, but I'm just going to try toär simplify it a little bit. We want to be top five with all of our clients in aggregate. How we get there is less important to us. We want the client to

[00:52:35] know how to interact with our ecosystem in a way that's symbiotic and a way that works for them. And we want the end result of that to be a top-tier counterparty for them. Sometimes they'll lean into their cash wallet with you. They'll lean into electronic trading. They'll lean into custom baskets. For us, we don't want to be mercenary in we need this here and this here and that here. And we have such deep partnerships with these clients that there are

[00:53:05] times where our returns on capital with them aren't where they need to be. And we let them know that and we work on the solutions to get us to the right place to keep the relationship thriving. But the truth is we want it to be very easy for clients to do business with us. We want to earn a top-tier ranking with them and we want them to be able to choose their buckets to get there as long as they're getting the value from the service that we provide. And so the beauty of having a global cross-product

[00:53:34] integrated offering is there's a lot of ways to win and there's a lot of ways for clients to benefit from their relationship with you. Just with respect to the different touch points, you mentioned Prime, Cash, electronic trading, of course the different derivatives franchises as well. What are the means by which folks in the seats in specific areas, whether it's Prime or OTC derivatives

[00:54:04] out of Japan, what are some of the ideas you've had around bringing them together where we all benefit from a degree of interaction that builds trust? How do you start to do that? If you have all the pieces of the puzzle which we do, you have to tie them together the right way. We spend a lot of time on what I call smashing together of the franchise. Smashing together of Prime and derivatives and cash so that there are no walls and no silos and so that we present the entire

[00:54:33] ecosystem to clients the right way. And then for us, one of our key differentiators, one that we created in recent years is what we call a tactical strategies team. So we have the Barclays equities tactical strategies team, bets for short. Just like Polymarket. Not exactly, but no, just kidding. It's a global team run by Alex Altman and they just do an amazing job of helping our clients navigate the markets inside and out 24-7. They do an amazing

[00:55:03] job of delivering signal versus noise in the market day in and day out, publishing day in and day out, and really helping clients focus on what they need to be focused on in the here and now. That's been an unbelievable amplification strategy for us. And for me, it all starts with the alpha. It all starts with are you a significant extension of your client's investment process? And this team has really helped us do that. And so for us, when you think about all of it in a

[00:55:33] blender, the way that you make the world feel small is that you get the content right. And if you get the content and the mind share right with the clients, it's very easy for them to come into your ecosystem in all the different ways to express those views and to change their portfolio and their positioning around the way the world's changing. And so we want to be at the forefront of that. And I think unbelievable debt of gratitude to Alex and the bets team. They've done an amazing job driving

[00:56:03] our connectivity to clients at the CIO level, at the analyst level, at the trader level, at the treasurer level, every which way, globally. Let's close with two questions kind of related. One is, as you think about the challenges that you're up against, it's incredibly competitive. The world in which we live and certainly the financial market services world in which we compete. The things that you are really trying to solve for or

[00:56:33] improve that are areas of focus. And then I think it's related, as you look forward to your business plan and the Barclays business plan, the things that you're super excited about, where you're just excited to put some resources towards. Tech is everything. And from the board, the CEO, on down, our firm gets that. So we have a very large tech budget and we recognize the importance of getting tech right. Getting tech right internally is critical. Getting tech right in a lot of the

[00:57:04] is also critical. I'll give you a stat. On a busy month in Asia, we do 3.7 million structured products, auto quotes, a month. 3.7 million, no hands, no touch, comes in via API, price goes out via API. And it's only going to get more and more significant. And the way your tech represents you to your clients, the way your tech works internally, is your architecture simplified?

[00:57:34] Do you have single points of entry for salespeople, traders to go into one area and get everything they need? Are your systems interoperable? Getting that right is so critical and getting your data right is so critical because you want to be able to participate in all the benefits that AI is going to bring. And in order to do that, you need to get your data layer right, you need to get your simplification right, you need to get the right tech systems in place, internally facing and externally

[00:58:03] facing to drive the next leg of this journey. People get it and they're investing heavily. The user experience from technology drives a lot and we're very aware of it. Well, Ronnie, it has been an absolute pleasure to host this conversation. I'm really glad we had a chance to do it and for my listeners to learn more about you and the business plan that you're utilizing to grow the equities franchise at Barclays. So thank you. It's been great for me. Dean, as I

[00:58:32] mentioned, when we got started, I have a lot of respect, a lot of admiration for you. I feel very fortunate to be your friend. I've always admired your curiosity and I've always appreciated your mentorship and not just to me. There are a lot of folks in my cohort who you had a massive impact on their career and I'm proud to say that I'm one of them. No, that's very kind of you. Very kind. Thank you. You've been listening to the Alpha Exchange. If you've enjoyed the show, please do tell a friend. And before we leave, I wanted to invite you to drop us some feedback.

[00:59:02] As we aim to utilize these conversations to contribute to the investment community's understanding of risk, your input is valuable and provides direction on where we should focus. Please email us at feedback at alpha exchange podcast dot com. Thanks again and catch you next time.