Who is Stephane Nicolas?

19 May 2010

2 minute read

Brevan Howard has launched a brand new $200m commodities fund, to be run by Stephane Nicolas, head of its commodities desk. So who is Stephane Nicolas (exactly), and how do you measure up to him?

1) Another product of the French grandes écoles system

According to his Linked In page Stephane went to École Centrale de Paris, a school best known for his engineering expertise (although he studied economics). Fabrice Tourre went there too.

2) A former employee of a prop shop

According to Bloomberg, Nicolas once worked for DRW Trading in London, which describes itself as "an international proprietary trading organisation", with a "mission to empower an organization of exceptional individuals to identify and capture trading opportunities in the global markets by leveraging and integrating technology, risk management and quantitative research."

He also worked for SocGen in Chicago.

3) A former trader at BofA

According to Stephane's FSA history, having graduated from École Centrale in 1992, and spending what appears to have been decade at SocGen and DRW, he joined BofA in 2001.

There, he became an energy derivatives trader, before moving on to run BofA's energy options desk.

4) Someone fortunate enough to get into Brevan Howard from the (nearly) the start

Nicolas joined Brevan Howard in 2004, one year after it was founded. He was made a partner in May 2007, aged less than 40.

AUTHORSarah Butcher

Global Editor

al
alice
20 May 2010
"Grandes Ecoles is nothing, just an elitist system. We have in Uk, USA and other countries good universities."
It's not fair to speak about "an elitist system" especially in regards to the prohibitive tuition fees of Anglo-Saxon unis. Neither money nor acquaintance matter to get in these so-called "Grandes Ecoles".
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ph
phasme
20 May 2010
God in earth...
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ph
phasme
20 May 2010
@anon : When you talk about Jerome Kerviel i would think this is a french sarcasm. Jerome Kerviel fails "because" he is not from "elitist schools" in France.
How many traders in Paris without being gratuated from X + Mines ? So, just top 3 or 4 engineering schools in France ? I guess, one, two ? maybe three...
We're not talking about the same thing, i'm talking about the differences beetween anglo saxon system and french system.
Note this, El Karoui admits her responsibility in subprime crisis, her responsibility as a teacher and her pupils responsability...
In really high numerical jobs like quant, i'm agree with you, even in uk or new york, people from engineering schools will be prefered. And that's correct.
But, there's no need to do engineering schools for trader positions or hedge fund managers jobs.
I was not talking about equity research, but trader in London with all backgrounds.
French system teachs good things, specially in maths, but this does not mean that the best financial guys in the world are french.
I prefer to work in desks with people from all backgrounds instead of people from top engineering french schools who thinks that they are Go
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an
anon
20 May 2010
@phasme
i was always referring to highly quantitative roles(the ones less likely to rely on nepotism and objective criterias), not qualitative ones. This also applies to MRM in say exotic products. Some traders do need to be highly numerical due to their product specialization. How can you be competent in such areas with a a BA in history or modern languages? I m not talking about equity research here! We are not talking about the same thing. This french elite we are talking to are highly regarded for the said roles because of the comparatively very solid quantitative education they got.
french working culture has a big flaw among other (see i m not so chauvinist): it does not reward employees as well as in other countries such as UK and wall street, whether it is finance, law or most professions for that matter, unless you are a big star in your field or very lucky..
can you make to trader without the elitist schools in france? yes you can...like Jerome Kerviel lol.
Who knows ENS, ENA ENSAE, Polytechnique, Centrale PAris, DEA El Karoui in the world, ? I bet quite a few MDs in exotic desks in London and some also in Wall street i would bet
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ph
phasme
20 May 2010
a good job for all your life, even if you're bad. Elitist system vs egalitarian system.
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