Nomura’s wellbeing guru won’t be getting another banking job

As we reported yesterday, various of Nomura’s unwanted bankers are finding new jobs. At least one, however, has decided that being a full time employee is no longer for him: Bilal Hafeez is going it alone.

The former global head of G10 FX and rates strategy at Nomura, Hafeez is also known for his wellness newsletters and podcasts on living sanely and healthily in the contemporary world. By pursuing a path of independence he hopes to do more of this in future and will be giving some talks at Peak Health in Switzerland in September.

Instead of working for another bank, Hafeez also plans to set up a new business called Macro Hive, which curates the best of macro research into a daily newsletter. The first will be delivered for free later this week. Ultimately, Hafeez hopes to move to a subscription model. He’s hiring researchers.

Hafeez was among the cohort who lost their jobs when Nomura announced its change of strategy in April 2019. He joined Nomura in 2013 after 13 years at Deutsche Bank and previously spent nearly four years at JPMorgan.

Hafeez is not the first macro researcher to go it alone. Ex-Goldman Sachs partner Bobby Vedral produces a free monthly newsletter, Macro Eagle, and former UBS star credit strategist Suki Mann sends a newsletter called Credit Market Daily, for which he charges a small fee. Selling your macro opinions through a bank is very yesterday.

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