We caught up with Sandie, a Quantitative Strategist at Rothesay. Sandie joined Rothesay back in 2022 on an internship, which she successfully turned into a full-time graduate offer. So we sat down to find out more about her experience with the firm, and her advice for others looking to follow a similar path.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I completed my undergraduate degree in Mathematics in 2019 and joined a graduate programme at an investment bank within the Sales and Trading division. This served as an introduction to the world of finance, where I learnt a lot about the wide variety of products and services, the different players within the financial markets, and most importantly for me, the diversity of roles within the field.
In particular, I had the opportunity to meet a number of “quants” across the bank, who gave me valuable insight into the world of quantitative finance – the more I learnt, the more I realised that the role was more aligned to my personality and interests. As such, I decided to return to university in 2021 to complete a Master’s degree in Mathematics and Finance to equip myself with the technical skills and knowledge to work within quantitative finance, before returning to the world of work in 2022.
What is your role and how long have you been here?
I’ve been working at Rothesay since May 2022 within the Quantitative Strategists team. I started as an intern, whereby I spent the first four months completing my Master’s thesis with guidance from both my university supervisor and my manager at Rothesay. I was able to produce a paper that was both academic and practically applicable for Rothesay’s business, which helped to turn my internship into a full-time graduate offer.
What inspired you to apply?
I came across Rothesay’s internships on Bright Network and was attracted to the idea of working for a niche company within the financial services industry. The background and size of the company represented an opportunity to gain greater responsibility from an early stage, which I saw as a great opportunity for career progression. Further, Rothesay’s purpose-driven business made it stand out amongst firms within the industry.
What has been the single most important thing you learnt so far in your job?
Self-awareness is key. It’s important to know where your strengths lie and to think about how you can use those skills to progress in your career. But even more important is acknowledging where your weaknesses are so you can construct a plan to help improve in those areas – a good manager and support system will help you through this.
What would a ‘normal’ day look like for someone in your role?
My typical workday involves a mixture of working on long term projects and some short-term problem solving. My main projects evolve in phases between understanding a business problem within a financial context, synthesizing the problem into a mathematical problem, solving the math problem, and finally implementing a programmatic solution with code. Outside of the core tasks of my role, I also have the opportunity to work on other projects of interest within the business, such as charity fundraising and supporting early careers programmes.
What do you find most interesting with the industry?
I find it really interesting that the work of Rothesay as a business has real-life impact on people, and that I get to contribute directly to it. It certainly makes it more worthwhile knowing that the interesting maths and finance problems I enjoy working on in my role result in meaningful decisions being made that can help with risk managing pensioner funds.
What is the company culture like?
Rothesay’s culture has been heavily influenced by both the history of the business, and its focus on efficiency as opposed to excessively growing its head count. As such, everyone takes real ownership of their work, striving for excellence in all we do – this makes Rothesay a great place to learn at the beginning of your career. Rothesay also has a very social atmosphere, with intra- and inter-team socials, as well as company-wide social events, which have a big impact on the culture.
Finally, any tips for anyone who’d like to applying for a similar role?
Firstly, its important to do your research to make sure you understand as much as you can about the company, its business model, and how it operates – not only will you likely be asked this at some stage of the assessment process, it will also help you to decide whether you think a particular company is a good fit for you.
Secondly, if you’re interested in applying for quant/strat roles specifically, make sure to brush up on your technical knowledge (maths/stats/finance/programming) as interviews are usually quite technical – do as many practice questions as you can!
Check out the stories of others who have secured a role at Rothesay: