Morning Coffee: The new top candidates at Goldman, and the woman hiring them. The world’s most disappointed 34-year-old hedge fund manager

When Goldman Sachs unveiled its fresh cohort of managing directors last November, we remarked that many of them came from the three functions offering the fastest routes to the top at GS: trading, technology…and strats.

But Goldman isn’t just promoting people to MD within strats – a division which spans trading and other functions and is staffed by quant and tech professionals – it’s also ramping up recruitment across seniority levels, reports Financial News.

Goldman’s strats hiring stats are impressive: in its securities business, strats now make up 27% of the workforce, up from 18% five years ago, according to Thalia Chryssikou, co-head of global sales strats and structuring across FICC and equities, quoted in a GS newsletter. Last year, 27% of experienced hires in the bank’s FICC division last year were strats.

If you want to work for Chryssikou, however, the skills you need are changing as Goldman looks to automate more processes and seeks a technology edge in sales and trading. “The strats we hired 10 to 15 years ago typically specialized in modeling risk and pricing analytics,” she said. Today, we’re focused on hiring a new generation of strats who specialize in data management and analytics, including machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), program management and digital product design, in addition to quantitative sciences.”

As Financial News notes, by demanding this type of experience Goldman Sachs is putting itself on a collision course with the likes of Amazon and Google in the battle for artificial-intelligence talent.

Separately, it seems that 34 may be too young after all to take over the reins of one of the world’s top hedge funds. James “Jimmy” Levin, co-chief investment officer of Och-Ziff Capital Management, was anointed heir-apparent of his firm just last February by its founder and current CEO, Daniel Och. But relations between the men have reportedly soured of late. Now Robert Shafir, previously the CEO of Credit Suisse Americas and co-head of private banking and wealth management at the firm, has been named as Och’s successor. He’s 59 years old.

Meanwhile:

Five more years of Jamie Dimon. (CNBC)

The ‘Wizard of Oz’ is now planning his hedge-fund comeback. (Financial News)

The flash-crash trader is now helping U.S. prosecutors. (Financial Times)

The new best place to work at Barclays. (Reuters)

Former AKO partner Erik Karlsson is launching an equities hedge fund firm. (HFM Week)

Paris region president: “Slow but significant” movement of jobs from London to Paris. (Bloomberg)

ABM Amro is expanding in Asia. (Business Times)

Twelve techies from a Californian start-up are joining Goldman. (Fast Company)

Blackstone wants to own your trading terminal. (Evening Standard)

J.P. Morgan, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway set up healthcare company for their staff. (Bloomberg)

Underperformance and high-testosterone hedge fund managers. (SSRN)