Michael Grebe, Economics, University of Manchester (2018 Cohort)

At the beginning of last November, I embarked on a journey to join the Derivative Sales team at Credit Suisse in Frankfurt, Germany as part of a 6-month internship. Working in the financial hub of Germany was an exciting opportunity to meet other fellow researchers working in the private sector and exchanging ideas about some of the latest methodologies in our field of research. Working with and talking to my colleagues, I was able to get some very useful and interesting insights about the behaviour of financial market participants and real-world applications of statistical pricing models for financial derivatives.

I believe I have been very fortunate with the team that I joined, as every single person made me feel very welcome from day 1 and helped me familiarize myself very quickly with the material needed to perform my core tasks. As part of this internship, I was responsible for structuring financial products based on derivatives, covering all asset classes including equity, debt, currencies and commodities and ultimately selling these to institutional investors, such as retail banks, insurance companies and pension funds.

Besides my core tasks, I was also able to engage in a few exciting projects. As part of one project, I worked with the London-based Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) Team on the development of a portfolio optimization model, which coincidentally happens to be very related to the subject of my 2^nd Ph.D. chapter that I am currently working on.

As part of another project, I helped the Equity Derivative Structuring team to review their pricing methodology that is used bank-wide and recalibrate the model to improve the competitiveness of the prices. During this project I connected with internal colleagues from all over the world, including Hong Kong, New York, London, Paris and Mumbai and was invited to personally visit the London branch.

Besides of the vast number of insights I received for my thesis, this internship has also provided me with many career-changing benefits. I built a network with some of the most established leading industry professionals, with whom I stay in close touch to this day. Moreover, I was offered to join two different teams after graduating from the PhD.

Unfortunately, close toward the end of my internship, the acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS has been announced, ending the history of a 167-year-old Bank. Whilst it has been a difficult time for everyone involved towards the end, I believe this experience to be invaluable. If I could do the internship all over again, knowing the outcome, I would do it in a heartbeat.

As a parting gift, I organized an indoor karting race event for the entire trading floor.

All in all, this internship has opened the door into the industry for me and connected me with brilliant people that have become close friends. This opportunity is invaluable and only possible thanks to the support of the NWSSDTP, for which I am forever grateful!

If someone asked me whether they should consider an internship during the PhD, I would tell them this:

Absolutely! Regardless of the industry, gaining practical experience and applying your skills gained from the PhD not only provides a confidence boost in your own skills, but also very valuable insights into the industry. Those insights are likely to enrich your current research and generate ideas for future research, as one may observe the need to answer research questions. My personal perception is that research (at least in my field) benefits by addressing the needs of industry and general economy. Doing an internship provides this exposure and may enable exciting new research projects.