Curriculum Vitae – Dr Mark Papiani
Employment Summary
· 2016-Present Managing assets (stock market/property)/part-time lecturing Bournemouth University/School governance
· 02/06-10/15 (9.5 years) Executive Director - JP Morgan Chase Investment Bank
· 10/99-01/06 (6 years) Director - UBS Investment Bank
· 05/94-08/99 (5 years) Research Assistant - University of Southampton
· 09/90-01/94 (3 years) Electronics Design Engineer - Siemens
· 10/84-10/86 (2 years) Computer Programmer - Barclays Bank PLC
Qualifications Summary
· Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Southampton, 2000. (Part-time whilst employed.)
https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.326305
· MBA – Warwick Business School – Modular - Jan 2003-Mar 2010
· B.Eng. Electrical Engineering - First Class (Hons), University of Southampton, 1990.
· Bill Bright Memorial Prize, 1990 – awarded, each year, to a final year student by the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.
· At the time, Southampton had one of the best Engineering Faculties in the Country, rated 3rd in the World for number of cited papers (behind 2 US universities), 5 out of 5 for research, 24 out of 24 for teaching.
· BTEC Level 4 PTTLS - Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, 2013
· Institute of Bankers Stage One Course (Banking, Economics, Accounts, Law), 1986
· Bournemouth Grammar School.
· 3 ‘A’ Levels: Maths/Physics/Economics, 9 ‘O’Levels
· Chartered Engineer
Key Skills and Career Highlights
A successful, coherent career encompassing significant commercial roles/success stories (in Investment Banking/Computing/Electronics Engineering) along with an excellent track-record in academia as a student/lecturer/researcher.
I have managed significant, game-changing, multi-million pound projects with global teams in some of the World’s largest companies (by market cap). I have held innovative technical and organisational management roles, with the pressure of owning mission critical 24x7 risk/valuation systems.
My career and life have been about challenging the status quo, thinking laterally and influencing senior management (up to CEO level) to change strategy and try new approaches. Some examples:
JPMorgan Chase - Led and delivered a multi-year, industry-leading, cutting-edge super-computing GRID development programme to move Exotic derivative risk calculations to run on GPUs (Graphical Processing Unit – more commonly associated with gaming and graphics). GPUs accelerated risk computations by 40X compared to running them on CPUs alone and delivered over 80 percent cost savings (multi-million dollar). This project was initially rejected by senior management as they deemed it too innovative and believed the risk of success too low. After further presentation, it was later funded, hugely successful and gave JP Morgan a huge competitive advantage in volatile markets. I was interviewed for a role at Barclays Capital in Canary Wharf at the time, and they were convinced that what I was building could not be accomplished.
See https://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/77309/JP-Morgan.pdf
As well as computational innovation, I was involved in strategic change towards keeping ‘all data for all time’ and the ability to recreate past calculations and analysis. This was required for back-testing hypotheses and for investigations into the Lehman’s crash (for example). Another trend was the need for faster, more cost-effective calculations for areas such as ‘full-revaluation’ VaR versus approximation. I worked on innovative ways of separating and encapsulating quant mathematical expertise and model software development from wider, calculation distribution software development.
Early technical oversight at JPMC included redesigning systems – e.g. flow trading from 2-tier, thick client to 3-tier with server booking service, shared by other apps and a market data cache and thin client.
Siemens – demonstrated that management were on the wrong track trying to reduce new product costs through clever electronics circuit design (something I had been tasked with), instead showing that Siemens could make dramatic cost reductions, using ‘buy not build’ for non-core components. This was a significant change for Siemens at the time, and as a young graduate, I had the self-belief to convince senior management of the benefits of this business strategy change. It was successful and significantly reduced the time and risk on projects plus allowed more time to focus on the value-add in Siemens products. Examples included buying-in modems and power supplies that were being built in-house and required telecoms approval, environmental approvals etc., further extending and complicating delivery times.
During my time in industry and academic research I have demonstrated exceptional skills at analysing large amounts of complex data/facts, and in getting up to speed with new business areas, so that I am able to ask important questions, influence, drive strategy, lead and make quick decisions. I have proven this many times in multiple, diverse fields. These skills have made it easy for me to communicate ideas and build very successful relationships and are also invaluable for being credible with stakeholders.
My ability to quickly assimilate new fields has been demonstrated in: academia (MBA and PhD degrees, Chartered Engineer); in innovative electronics design; in investment banking: owning IT valuation and risk calculations globally for Equity Derivatives, responsible for PnL attribution, FSA Liquidity related calculations, Equities VaR, Stress VaR, Volcker reporting, scenario and limits reporting. Further diverse examples are contained below under governance, lecturing and martial arts ‘credibility’ analysis.
Track record of leading technical teams to successfully deliver projects with complex technology content and business change on time and within budget. Proven ability for innovation/problem solving in several different types of industries. Attention to detail – uniquely designed 2 electronics circuit boards for Siemens that contained no errors in testing and did not require design/test iteration before production.
Trouble shooter/delivering against the odds: Frequently I have been asked to turnaround high-value, critical, multi-year projects that were running late and over budget and not achieving goals/business value (e.g. UBS flow/convertibles pricing, JPMC flow/convertibles pricing, JPMC risk compute transformation and legacy risk system retirement).
Lessons Learnt:
· At UBS, a new system contained too much business workflow process change - poorly received by users and too slow for equity derivative traders. The user interface (with dropdowns etc) was too slow in fast markets, where a simple text-based entry could lead to faster pricing for clients.
· Too many generic components were built at great expense (in the hope of later reuse that was not realised => focus on core competencies and business problems not becoming software house).
· At JPM, I had to convince management to segment a multi-faceted change programme and hedge their bets by adding some of the new functionality to the old system during transition (related to Platform Symphony GRID Computing Middleware and Gemfire caching). I was the programme manager on the successful replacement and retirement of a complete, entrenched equity derivative risk management system that permeated all areas of JPMC.
· I have seen many mistakes around impossible promotion processes and demoralising job titles (e.g. ‘non-officer’) and demoralising speeches (e.g. ‘Accenture have better skills than in house’, ‘Software Managers do not need MBAs only business managers’). I am happy to expand on these examples.
· I have experienced chaotic, knee-jerk strategy and project management with little control on requirements, change control, staffing etc. versus controlled, pragmatic engineering approaches.
· Opinion on: Org structure – matrix v pure project v function / forced inter-ranking of staff / compensation, published pay scales v hidden salary / revenue earners v overhead staff / cultures of fear versus honest reporting/ gatekeeper power.
Governance – In 2017/18 I was briefly a governor at an Academy that ran 3 schools in Bournemouth (Avonbourne and Portchester College). I was removed by the CEO for questioning performance data and producing my own contrary data. I was told that there was no right to appeal my removal and no right to a hearing according to the academy ‘rules’. I have integrity and high-standards, and I am detailed and tenacious. I believe that the CEO really wanted governors who would attend meetings and not analyse, question, or do any external due diligence. I wrote to the LEA and later to OFSTED. I was eventually vindicated:
In 2019, OFSTED rated the school: ‘Inadequate - special measures required’. The academy trust was
rebrokered and the existing CEO and board removed. The OFSTED report was scathing about the leadership and governance:
- An external review of governance should be undertaken
- Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring that the trust board and governors hold leaders more stringently to account for outcomes and standards in the school.
- Leaders and governors have had an overgenerous view of the quality of education that the school provides. The lack of robust challenge to reverse the fall in academic outcomes has meant that pupils have not been served well as endemic weaknesses have continued.
- Governors are loyal and dedicated to the school but do not have a realistic picture of the quality of education it provides. Governors have underestimated the extent to which improvement is needed. Their ability to establish the quality of what they oversee is not refined enough. This leads to a lack of stringent challenge from governors.
This is an interesting example of what can go wrong when governance is in name only, or senior people are afraid to speak up. Additionally, governors need to be independent and there needs to be a process for Boards and CEO’s to add/remove them. Academies can write their own rules and, in this case, governors could not challenge without being removed.
I have also lectured to university students. I am quite happy and effective lecturing to 100+ students, mentoring undergraduates one-to-one, providing study/career advice over a coffee, as well as challenging CEOs about strategy in major organisations.
In 2016 I lectured part-time at Bournemouth University -digital marketing/social media-marketing, entrepreneurship, small-business accounting, and business growth strategy. I quickly taught myself Google/Facebook pay-per-click advertising techniques and as a proof-of-concept and demonstration to students I created and advertised a 1-week martial arts instructor training course that produce over £20,000 in revenues generated solely from these advertising techniques in a short space of time.
Publications in refereed journals (ACM, IEE, etc) and international conferences. Papers I have written are available on websites of, or cited in papers of, IBM, NASA, and the ACM (see below).
Research at the University of Southampton. - prepared several research project proposals for submission to UK and European funding bodies.
A final example of my deeply questioning nature and ability to drill-down and research facts and desire to do thing properly is illustrated by my extremely unusual and detailed martial arts quest. From 2005 to 2015 I started training in martial arts but soon questioned whether they were effective for self-defence or whether there was too much hype and mythos. I decided to research the topic. I completed 3 black-belts in different martial arts and 5 Level-3 academic awards in self-defence (including the law around reasonable-force), conflict management, restraint and related topics. I trained with military and civilian self-defence experts from around the world (including Itay Gil, Geoff Thompson and Mark Dawes). James Gray MP, initiated some debate about martial arts being taught within schools (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2020-0055/), however, my controversial conclusion is that most martial arts do not work for self-defence. They focus on form over function, rather than function over form. In a dangerous situation there are no combat rules (other than reasonable force) and a different mind-set and techniques are required that promote avoidance at all costs.
Professional Affiliations (Eur Ing, CEng, MBCS, CITP)
· Engineering Council Registration – Chartered Engineer (CEng)
· FEANI (European Federation of National Engineering Associations) Registration (Eur Ing)
Selected Training Courses / Conferences Attended
· Quant Training – JPMorgan Chase Internal QR Quant/Trader Course, 4-15 Oct, 2010.
· Hedge Funds, Alpha Development Partnership, 7 March, 2008.
· MBA Warwick Business School Modular/Distance Learning, Jan 2003-Mar 2010.
· Managing within UK Law, Simmons & Simmons, London, 9 July 2003.
· Options Fundamentals, UBS Warburg.
· Interest Rates and Bonds, UBS Warburg, 18-21 Nov, 2002.
· Collateral Trading (Securities Finance) Business Course, Fin Tuition Ltd., 12-13 Dec, 2000.
· High Tech Procurement: Acquisition/Negotiation Process and Vendor Relationship Management, International Computer Negotiations, Inc., 17-18 Oct, 2000.
· Securities Finance & Repo, FinTuition, 12-13 Dec, 2000.
· 22nd International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB), Bombay, India, 3-6 Sept, 1996.
Published Work Citation Examples
· NASA
o The NAS Parallel Benchmarks 2.0, NASA Ames Research Center https://www.nas.nasa.gov/assets/pdf/techreports/1995/nas-95-020.pdf
· IBM
o Data Links Managing Files Using DB2
https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246280.pdf
· ACM
o DLFM: a transactional resource manager, ACM SIGMOD Record, Volume 29, Issue 2 June 2000 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/335191.335461