Citadel's quant buildout continues with this big new hire

Citadel is one of the many top hedge funds rolling out the red carpet to attract top quants - and it appears to be working. It's latest recruit is a former portfolio manager at Millennium Capital who's held senior quant jobs at various big hedge funds in the UK.

Richard Williams, who spent the last four years as a portfolio manager at Izzy Englander's $35bn hedge fund Millennium Management, has just joined Citadel as a senior quant, according to filings on the Financial Conduct Authority register. Citadel confirmed his appointment.

Before joining Millennium, Williams was director of research at systematic hedge fund Aspect Capital, where he worked for two and a half years. He also spent three years as a 'senior scientist' at Cantab Capital Partners, from its initial start-up phase in 2006. Cantab, a computer-driven hedge fund staffed by former Goldmanites which was acquired by GAM in 2016, was notoriously picky about who it hired. It reportedly received 700 CVs a year and hired only a handful of people. Cantab was Williams' first hedge fund job - he previously worked at both Deutsche Bank and Citi.

Citadel has been making some major quant hires so far this year. It brought in re-hired James Yeh to lead its global quantitative strategies business, it’s poached senior UBS quant (and maths genius) Paul Jefferys and its hackathons are touring universities across the world in an attempt to uncover scarce quant talent.

As well as quantitative portfolio managers, Citadel has been recruiting tech and artificial intelligence expertise in a bid to capitalise on the new wave of data-driven investment. In June, it brought in Li Deng for the newly-created role of chief artificial intelligence officer. In July it also hired Laszlo Korsos as its new chief data officer. Korsos is a former Goldman Sachs strat who spent the last three year's heading up Uber's economics and optimisation quants team.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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