Applications of Computing in Industry : Lecture

Overly-complex webs of unmaintainable IT systems are commonplace in the corporate world, in particular within investment banking. The result of this is costly IT divisions and an inability to innovate rapidly, often with significant commercial impact. This talk looks at the reasons why systems get into this mess, techniques to deal with them when they get into that state, and some thoughts on how to avoid getting there in the first place.

Simon is the head of Morgan Stanley's Equity Risk and Pricing technology group and a Managing Director in IT. This 150-strong global team is responsible for all front-office risk and pricing technology within the equity division, as well as critical interfaces to middle and back-office as well as firm risk management. Simon graduated with a BSc in Computer Science from Imperial in 1990. He worked for eight years at the Marine Resources Assessment Group, building up an IT team developing natural resource modelling systems. In 1998, he joined Morgan Stanley as an analyst developer in the risk management reporting group. He performed a number of roles in the risk management area before taking the lead of the group in 2006. Morgan Stanley has an excellent relationship with Imperial and Simon has worked with summer interns, industrial placement students and graduate trainees as well as being actively involved in the university relationship during his time at the firm.