I have a unique background - my work to this point has married my obsession with operational improvement and my passion for investing. Alongside my role as an investor at Baillie Gifford, I spent a significant amount of time driving a variety of internal improvement projects - detailed below.
**Translation between technology and investing teams:**
At Baillie Gifford, I represented our 150 investors on the firmās internal AI working group. In this capacity, I was instrumental in leading key projects such as:
- **The "BG Brain"**: This initiative aimed to train an AI assistant using all the research produced within the firm, enhancing our investment strategies.
- **Sidekick**: Developed a general assistant integrated into teams, designed to increase comfort with AI tools among less tech-savvy investors.
**Developing a new fund from scratch:**
I took the initiative to collaborate with a colleague in designing a new cross-asset fund. This involved:
- Crafting a fund that used target beta to global equities as our asset allocation tool, addressing communication challenges commonly faced by multi-asset funds.
- Setting out the projectās roadmap in late 2022, which included internal coalition-building, constructing and back-testing a model portfolio, and presenting to the firmās partnership.
- Developing a playbook for engaging with various stakeholders, from less technical client partners to hedge fund allocators for large pension funds.
- The model portfolio notably outperformed the firmās multi-asset strategy by 20% over H2 2023.
**Santa Fe Instituteās Complex Systems Summer School (CSSS):**
I was selected to attend the prestigious CSSS in June 2023, leveraging Baillie Gifford's relationship with the institute. As the only analyst in a cohort of 150 offered this opportunity, I worked alongside post-doc physicists on diverse projects, including:
- Using LLM-driven agents to play the parlour game "Mafia".
- Developing a model comparing perceived and real political polarization.
- Creating an agent-based model of meritocracy in an economy.
This combination of hands-on investing experience and a passion for operational excellence makes me excited to contribute to the Biz Ops network. I am eager to bring my insights and collaborate with others who share a commitment to strategic thinking and operational execution.
