MEMBER PROFILE
the CFA was a badge of entry there.”
And so Kinney took the exams.
Raymond Sinclaire, CFA
He came back and spent some time
working on the other side of the
Risk manager, Barclays
profession, initially as head of
INTERVIEW BY: MAHA KHAN PHILLIPS • PHOTOGRAPHY: ABI HARDWICK
international research in the multi-
manager division of Northern Trust,
and then at Nicola Horlick’s Bramdean
Asset Management, where he helped set R
aymond Sinclaire was originally to London and joined Barclays. “I work in
an academic, based at the the wholesale credit risk team, looking at
University of Witwatersrand in risk models and how they feed into capital
up a listed diversifi ed alternatives fund. Johannesburg. “I was lecturing at calculations. One thing you learn moving
In October 2007, he moved to university, and then I realised it would be into the corporate sector is that you’re
Mercer, with responsibility for the a good thing to go out into the corporate dealing with real life challenges, like
European implemented consulting world. It was around the time of Basle II, having only a certain amount of data to
business. “Th e governance burden on and the implications of that on credit risk work with, and things not being exactly as
clients is increasing all the time, and there modelling meant there were you’d want them to be,” he says.
are more and more requirements being opportunities for people with quant But he believes his academic
placed on trustees. Clients are asking us backgrounds and economic skills.” background helps. “Th ere is a strong
to become fi duciaries and to help.” He started doing his CFA while he emphasis on questioning and fi nding
He says that “there are a lot of labels was still completing his Masters, right reasons for what you observe.” He
fl ying around fi duciary management, before he started lecturing. “I had heard believes that candidates wanting to enter
but basically, it’s the outsourcing of about the CFA from a friend, and it held the profession should be confi dent
aspects of both decision-making and a lot of appeal. Th ere are not that many enough to challenge what they see.
implementation of those decisions.” academic institutions in developing “Good common sense is important.
Kinney is a keen and talented countries that are well known, and I liked Th ere’s nothing wrong with challenging
guitarist. He plays for one hour every the fact that the CFA was recognised in the norm and they way things are done.”
day, and still has lessons on Saturdays. many parts of the world.” Sinclaire is a keen pianist, and is also
His mother was a keen pianist, and Sinclaire moved to Absa bank in expecting his fi rst child, a girl. “Th e
Kinney likes to play in pubs and in his Johannesburg, which is majority owned by house is full of baby pink items at the
village hall. Barclays Bank. He subsequently relocated moment!” he jokes.
Kirsty McLaren, CFA, ASIP
A
fter graduating with an MA in philosophy from Cambridge in the
early 1990’s, Kirsty McLaren headed east to escape the recession. “It
was all doom and gloom in the UK, so I went travelling in Asia. Th ere
Co-manager, RWC Asia Ascent Fund
was a huge contrast between what was happening in Asia and what was going
INTERVIEW BY: STUART NEWMAN
on in the UK, so I decided to go and work out there,” she says.
McLaren started working for Rothschild Asset Management in Hong
Kong, focusing on Asian equities. Although her degree wasn’t in fi nance, she
found asset management particularly appealing. “It’s consistently interesting,
consistently challenging. Th ere was no graduate training programme at
Rothschild in Hong Kong because it was a small overseas offi ce, so the boss
decided the best way to train everyone was to make them do the CFA”, she
says. McLaren received her CFA charter whilst in Hong Kong and now
regards it as her basic training in fi nancial statement analysis.
She spent fi ve years in Hong Kong, then moved back to the UK. She
took a job at Rexiter, an emerging markets boutique and a subsidiary of
State Street Global Advisors, and found herself studying for the ASIP
exams. “I had never worked in UK and in order to get my FSA registration
I had to do the regulation exam. At the time, the UK was pushing ASIP as
the industry qualifi cation.”
In 2001 McLaren moved to New York to work in Asian equity sales for
JPMorgan. She found New York to be a dynamic city and a great place to
live, but says that “moving from the buy-side to the sell-side was good for
14 WINTER 2008/09
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