The Rise of Fintech for Investment Management

Giorgio is responsible for overseeing the investment process, performance and management team for the Multi Asset team globally

Evolution of Chief Investment Officer over the Years
The Chief Investment Officer plays a significant role in ensuring the growth of an organization. My primary responsibility, as the Chief Investment Officer, is to implement portfolio management. There is a system developed around the data as the organization uses Excel as an interface and MATLAB as the computing system. The other responsibility is the management of people with the use of technology.

Technological Trends in the Fintech landscape
There are several new technological trends emerging at a rapid pace. Therefore, any organization has to understand the functionalities of the new technologies. Huge amount of resources are being invested in comprehending trends like Artificial Intelligence trends that would eventually change the financial market. There is also an R&D team in the organization set up to explore these technologies in depth to keep up with the latest trends. There is only a minor part of the market that utilizes machine learning but that is fast changing as more companies are adopting this technology. Blockchain is another major technology that will change the financial market in the future as there will be an impact in the global market owing to the simplified trading processes. While there are no specific parties securing the database blockchain ensures stability and safety of the process.

Capital Markets on a Global Scale
It is crucial to discuss about the markets from different

parts of the world for a global organization to work
efficiently. There are monthly calls to discuss the capital markets from major cities to piece together all the information to get a wider outlook on how to leverage data from different regions. There are two sides to this process fundamental and systematic. The systematic component is easier to access as it provides statistics that can be analyzed to implement strategies, where as the fundamental component is more analytic in nature as it is discussion based and descriptive,thus making it complex for interpretation. The organization has a multicultural team with a plethora of PhD holders ranging from backgrounds in statistics, economics finance and many other fields.

Talent Acquisition in the Capital Market
It is impossible to have a successful organization without hiring the right people. HR team understands that there are two factors that are important in talent acquisition. Firstly, diversification is a key concept that will ensure creativity and productivity in the workspace.Different demographics are highl valuable in an organization for diverse and wider opinions of the implemented strategies. Secondly, there is a program in the Allianz Global Investors called the Global Graduate Program where students are hired from universities and enrolled in an 18 month training period. The students are rotated to different locations around the world for the stipulated time period to gain knowledge about the company on a global scale.

Lessons Learnt through the Experience
Having started my corporate career as a software developer programming really helped me to climb the corporate ladder. Oftentimes, there are instances where entry level employees are unable to do coding or programming. In order to understand the computing system, it is necessary to learn programming in this technological landscape. Programming will dominate the market in the next ten years and hence it is important to have a basic understanding of computing. Curiosity is also a key factor to ensure a successful career as having a constant yearning for knowledge is a key attribute in an investment leader. An environment needs to be created where every individual feels empowered. There is a need for every individual to work together to contribute for the next invention as a collaborative effort.