Vijayesh graduated from CCLS with an LLM in Law and Economics. He is an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs: he explains how the LLM has contributed to his career.
The 2008 crisis triggered radical changes in the financial industry, introducing regulatory reform, increased transparency mandates and enforcement of trading limits and controls. These were transforming how institutions operated in an effort to shape a more robust financial system. Having studied mathematics and finance, I felt it would be opportune to explore these legal implications and so was prompted to take an LLM at QMUL CCLS based on the global expertise of its academics and the unique hybrid of law and economics it offered.
The LLM course was very interesting and its interactive lectures coupled with CCLS’s resources made for an engaging learning experience. Having not studied law in the past, CCLS provided valuable support to get up to speed in the subject and the flexibility of the LLM allowed me to navigate through particular modules of interest. Legal Aspects of International Finance for example provided a lawyer’s lens on financial products and contracts, while Regulation of Financial Markets offered insight into economic policy considerations. During the year it became apparent there is a correlation between financial regulation and financial innovation, and this led me to research the boundary problem in shadow banking for my dissertation.
Through the LLM I was able to stretch my critical thinking, build research skills and gain a commercial awareness of the intertwined legal and economic worlds. Together with the resources of the QM Careers Service this helped me secure my first role at Nomura in 2014 within Regulatory Operations, focusing on regulations of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). A year later I joined Accenture as a Capital Markets Consultant working with investment banks to facilitate their Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) obligations. Then in 2016 I joined Goldman Sachs where I have since been working in the Foreign Exchange (FX) derivatives space.
My focus is on modelling FX over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives to facilitate trading, operational functions and regulatory reporting. A factor of this involves analysis of global regulations faced by banks which can have implications at both a macro level in terms of permissible trading activity and a micro level in terms of reporting specific derivatives and their features.
Across jurisdictions, regulatory requirements can differ and so derivative model structures/designs need to accommodate any variance that may exist. This can give rise to complexities such as how to decompose trading strategies for the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II), or how derivative contracts can be standardised for the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and how to optimise eligibility decision making for reporting to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), to name a few. Here I have been able to apply insights from the LLM, particularly the differences across financial regulations, the destabilising challenges those differences bring and the benefits that harmonisation can bring.
Building efficient derivative models that can span multiple jurisdictions fosters sound standards and governance. This has led me in my role to interface with the external community too, where I am currently collaborating with other banks and institutions in an effort to unify market-wide derivative infrastructure via the ISDA Common Domain Model (CDM).
QMUL CCLS courses are a great springboard for starting your career or building upon it. Here are five actions I would recommend: