Career Path: Equity derivatives head, Merrill Lynch
In 1986 I graduated with Magna Cum Laude (a first) in business economics from Icade, part of the Universidad Pontificia Commillas in Madrid. I went straight into McKinsey & Co, the strategy consulting firm.
It was an exciting place to work. The Spanish office was run by a couple of partners who were building it up. I was the second analyst McKinsey had hired in Spain, and the first woman ever. Because the office was small I got great exposure: I worked in Madrid, Paris and Lisbon.
After two years, I started thinking about doing an MBA. McKinsey agreed to sponsor me and I got a place on the course at Harvard Business School. Harvard had apparently never had a female Spaniard before I arrived.
Harvard gave me an opportunity to explore the intricacies of corporate strategy, management behaviour and senior level decision making. I took marketing courses, strategy courses and courses in game theory. I also took finance courses, which taught me how companies use financial instruments to add value to their balance sheets.
During the summer of the MBA course I opted to work for Goldman Sachs in London instead of McKinsey. I took a job in their M&A department. It was great. They offered me a full time position, but at that stage I wanted to go back to Spain for personal reasons; I declined.
A year later, I finished at Harvard and joined JP Morgan's M&A team in Madrid. Soon after, in 1993, I moved with JP Morgan to London.
I stayed in JP Morgan's M&A team until 1995, when I decided to make a career leap and move into equity derivatives instead.
I came across equity derivatives while I was in the M&A team: we used them to structure an interesting financing solution for a client. I was intrigued. It seemed derivatives could be used to solve strategic questions in corporate finance. It also seemed that not many people had recognised that there was a bigger role for derivatives in the corporate world: certainly not the CEOs of the companies I was working with and, in many cases, not even the bankers.
I asked to be moved into the equity derivatives team. My M&A colleagues were baffled: why did I want to leave the glamorous world of M&A, my own office and regular meetings with senior corporate staff, to sit on the trading floor and talk basis points with fund managers? It was considered a step down.
I started out on the institutional sales team, where I had ample time to discuss basis points with fund managers. It gave me a chance to learn about the equity derivatives business. After a couple of years, and plenty of studying in my own time, I was comfortable with the product and ready to put my ideas into action.
I called up my former colleagues in M&A and arranged to work with them using derivatives products to solve financing needs when appropriate. It was good timing: the M&A boom of the late 1990s was just beginning and we had a chance to work on a lot of innovative transactions.
At the start of 2004 I moved to Merrill Lynch. It was a major turning point: most of my banking career had been with JP Morgan. Merrill is a major force in equity distribution, it has always been at the vanguard of equity-linked innovation and it is as well a top M&A house: it is a very attractive platform on which to build a corporate equity derivatives practice.
We've created a completely new team from scratch, combining M&A, tax, accounting and equity derivatives skills. We will be very much focused on product innovation around M&A, equity raising and strategic risk management needs of our corporate clients. Creating something new and better is always a challenge but equally a fantastic opportunity.
When you find something you believe in, it's worth going for it wholeheartedly, regardless of what anyone else says. Whatever happens it will be rewarding. If you're successful it could be amazing.
