The former CTO of the world's largest hedge fund is now a private jet pilot

The former chief technology officer at Bridgewater Associates, who left the world’s largest hedge fund in 2015, has just embarked on a new career as an airline pilot.

Jud Brandt, who worked as chief technology officer at Bridgewater for around a year, is now a pilot for Delta Private Jets based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Brandt is an experienced technology leader, having joined Bridgewater from Accenture where he was managing director, North America IT strategy. He was also CIO for Delta Airlines from 2000-2004, so perhaps the pilot switch has been a long time coming.

Brandt hasn’t given up tech entirely. Since leaving Bridgewater in March 2015, he’s been managing partner at enuvo, which works with tech leaders to help with coaching, strategy and the recruitment of ‘transformational leaders’.

Nonetheless, Brandt’s new job marks an exciting departure from financial technology. What’s more, he’s not the only senior technologist to leaving banking for aviation.

Sandeep Saksena, the former chief technology officer for fixed income at J.P. Morgan who was latterly head of capital markets technology for the Americas at Nomura, has retired. His public profile says that he is ‘flying planes, playing golf, travelling and spending all my time with the family’.

Senior technologists are moving out of banking in spite of the increased focus on tech. Bob Hillier, who was managing director and head of fixed income currencies and commodities technology at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, is now helping repair houses after storm damage in Houston.