Financial Career Talk With Radio Jamaica

Following from the first interview, the team at Radio JA were keen to have me back on to discuss the current state of financial job market 

Among the topics were the differences between Risk Management and Trading and how technology has changed the industry. We wrapped up with an exchange about working internationally. 

Kick back have a listen and enjoy. 

#finance #career #jobmarket

Transcript

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As Jamaica continues to evolve economically and technologically, these fields are creating new opportunities for young professionals locally and internationally. Well, we're being joined by a personal and career coach, mentor, and diversity champion Ben Greaves. We say good afternoon to you, Ben Greaves. Great Ben Green. How are you, sir? Hello, Johnny. How are you? I am good, sir Green. I hope you are fope you're good as well. Yes, I'm very well, thanks. Very well. The line is a little bit shaky, so I hope it uh it holds out. But so far, so good. Ah, so far, so good. Definitely, I hope it will hold out as well because we're looking forward to this conversation with you on this career and the talent Tuesday. Uh something like you're in the UK. Are you there? Uh yes, I'm actually based in Germany. Oh, you're based in Germany? I'm from the UK, but uh I'm based in Germany. Okay, well, tell you what, I hope the weather is uh treating you well on that side of the globe. You uh originally started your professional journey in law before moving into finance and energy trading. What led to uh those uh transitions, if you will, throughout your career? Yeah, good question, Johnny. I it's something I'm I'm often asked, and I I would say I've never been somebody to let the grass grow under my feet, to use an expression. Um I I started off in the law because I had the idea that I wanted to help people, which I I still do to a large degree, but it didn't really I mean it didn't really tick all the boxes. Um and as things moved on the skills were transferable um to the financial world, mainly in accounting, really, to be honest, on credit control and and doing credit policies and things. Um and I slowly moved into finance. And um after some years, I mean I always wanted to get into the commercial side of work. And uh I had I had a cousin that was a broker, and I used to ask him, you know, often he had say, Have you got a job? Can you get me a job? And he said, No, no, no, he's very selective and what have you. But then by chance, I I got a job as an accountant in uh what was described as a gas company, and then it uh it turned out to be a gas trading company and it was a start-up, and I just ended up doing lots of different things, and and slowly I realized actually, ah, this is this is the area that I wanted to be in all along. Um, and it's just been a lot of luck, actually, a little bit of positioning, but also a lot of luck, Johnny, as well. I have to say. I'm sure a lot of hard work as well. You're being quite modest, Mr. Green, but that's uh that's all right. You know, many many many persons listening in well, and I must admit, I'm also one of those persons as well. No, I don't fully understand you know the different roles, you know. For instance, um the difference between what a risk manager does or a trader or uh you know the or an actuist? Uh quite frankly, I need uh those persons in my corner, you know. I need an accountant, for instance, uh for my businesses and uh my own personal accounting. I lean heavily on people with that kind of knowledge to ensure that I don't get into you know deep waters. Um what does those careers actually involve? When you talk about risk managers or uh, you know, is there any any kind of thread that runs through them? Yeah, I guess risk management and trading, they're very uh closely aligned. Right. What I always say to people is that trading is is essentially risk management. And trading is something that started um way back when, uh a couple of hundred years ago, when farmers wanted to sell forward contracts for their product. Right. And essentially what they were doing was risk management, they just wanted to avoid the chance that the prices would change too much before the actual delivery of this product, whether it's going to be pork bellies or wheat or whatever. So that was essentially um trading, and risk management is more from the kind of policing side. So from a trading perspective, what you're doing is you're creating and you're managing risk. Right. And it depends which part of the value chain you're on. You could be on production, you could be the midstream, which is kind of storage, this kind of thing, transportation, and then you're on a downside, which the downstream, sorry, let's say, and the downstream is where you're selling to customers, and there you're you're basically moving risk from one place to another. A risk manager is someone who there's a good analogy where you can say, Um, you know, Johnny, you say to your to your good lady wife, I'm going to the casino with the boys for the weekend, and she will say, Well, look, there's a thousand dollars, and that's your lot. And that's it, you only have a thousand dollars for your entertainment. Exactly. So the the risk manager is there to to essentially make sure that you stay within whatever limits they give you, um, whatever limits the company may prescribe, and you just make they're just there to make sure that you don't do anything daft because ultimately trading is also an emotional um, there's an emotional aspect to trading as well, which which a lot of people don't realize. Right, right. You know, we often hear about accounting or our finance career, uh, but but but there are so many other areas within the industry, right? Of financing and and accounting. What what are some of the other career paths that young people should be looking at right now, paying attention to, uh, trying to understand fully? Yeah, that's that's a another good question, Johnny. The the thing is the accounting industry over the last 25 or 30 years has changed immensely. I'm not that much in touch with it anymore, but what I do know is that the traditional kind of um bean counter bookkeeper um is still exists, but there's there's not much call for it now because a lot of the role has been automated. Yes, AI, yes. Yeah, so a lot of those skills right now, you see, have been uh a lot of people have have lost, I guess, jobs in those areas. Uh it's good knowledge to have though, but you're saying a lot of those skills are being automated today. Yeah, it's definitely good skills to have. Things have been automated, but when you know what goes on behind the automation, and this is always useful. And the whereas people used to go into typical kind of accounting and accounting jobs, and now there are much other um, it's it's much more varied now. So there are you know, you can go into risk management as an accountant, you can be a risk analyst, you can be a financial advisor, right? Um, go into treasury, you know, mergers and acquisitions now as well. So there are there are lots of different roles, lots of different areas that you can move into with finance skills. Um, because you when you learn finance, you don't just learn um debit and credit, you know, you learn things like um for example, discounting, cash flows, um, this kind of thing, um, intrinsic and extrinsic valuations and things like that. So these are things which in a far in many finance roles, whether it's mergers and acquisitions, if you're a data analyst, um, anything, there's always these these elements and skills which are useful. Um and so this is where this is where the where the profession has gone. You know, it's diversified a lot and it's it's kind of had to because of um because of changes in technology. I and that's where I wanted to ask you about that again, a little deeper into the the changes uh because of technology. How has finance uh finance and and and changed because of that? Uh with with the advent of AI, with the advent of um programs, software programs that now do some of that work for for you. Yeah, the the finance industry and and you know the energy industry as well, insofar as the financial side, has changed immensely. The area that I work in, there's a lot of reporting now which is done technologically, and it's actually as a result of increased regulation. So that's the effect that technology has had. It means that the human interface isn't so much there as much as it used to be, and so therefore, there needs to be stricter controls around the execution of um of transactions and the like, but also it's made things um a lot easier and a lot uh a lot quicker. There's also the argument around jobs and this kind of thing, but generally speaking, um it's worked for the better, comes with a lot of risk, though, as I've said, it's less personal now. Um but then the human interaction is needed to make sure that the things don't go wrong on the technical side, so there's still something for people to do, still some uh for people to do. But Ben, I I I do have a couple more questions for you. I know that we're have limited time, but I wanted to ask you this because you've worked across uh the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany. What are some of the things young professionals would understand or should understand about competing in international work environments? Oh, yes, interesting. Um working in an international environment. I think the most important thing is language actually and and being open for different culture because this comes before the work and the business side. And we're lucky in the English is is very, very widely spoken. So if you can speak English, this is a huge advantage internationally. But then if you take um Switzerland, where there's maybe three or four different languages that people generally speak German, French, Italian, and there's uh Romance, which is an old language, you need to speak one of those really, uh, because otherwise it's very difficult to integrate. But if you take Germany on the other, on the other hand, a lot of people speak English, so then you if you want to learn German, it can be a bit of a struggle, um, strangely enough. But the most important thing is that is that you need to understand not just the business side, but there's also the cultural side as well. Um, and if people want to work internationally, then they have to be prepared to, I would say, come out of your comfort zone and you know, get prepared to do things like order the wrong things at restaurants, yeah. Um the wrong buses. Uh just a stick of pin right there for me, please, again. Let me take a quick break and come right back. Really enjoying this conversation, but I want to ask you at least two more questions before we have to release you. So I'm gonna just take a quick break, come right back, speaking with Ben Green, personal and career coach, mentor and the diversity champion, talking to him about uh finances and the finance and the uh changes, the difference uh in terms of uh jobs that are available in that sector and just what's happening in that world. We'll be right back. This is the Two Life Crew. This is 94.5. It'll be nice if I um Juan Delottam and uh had uh a conversation with Ben Green, personal and career coach, mentor, and diversity champion. I'm sure he'd be able to tell me what to do with my 81 million dollars, Mr. Green. Uh we're back with you, sir. Okay. Yes. Uh yes, are you still hearing us clearly? Sorry? Still hearing clearly? Yes, but ironic. Yes, I am. It's still a little bit shaky, but I can I can hear most of it. Alright, great, great. Well, we'll he we're hearing you. Um what skills are becoming increasingly important uh when you're entering finance-related careers today. Um what skills I mean, I guess it's it's the these things don't really change in as far as the personalities that are required, Johnny. I think it's people that are analytical, um, good with numbers. You don't necessarily have to be super duper with math, but I think you need to have an understanding of numbers and not be afraid of looking at uh a lot of data. I think someone that's technology technologically minded, I would say, because in the time that I've been working, there's been new programs which have come along alongside things like VBA and SQL. There's there's things like Python now, which is a new programming language. Um, so you need to want to learn because they you're never gonna stop learning, this is for sure. Right. Um, but I think those those are the skills that you need. Mainly to to have some some uh comfort working with numbers. Um yeah, they're the main things, and want to be inquisitive as well, and and look into numbers and and things and see patterns and uh try and understand what um what is going on with things. So it's to to have an inquisitive nature as well. Yeah, I guess that's good generally to have an inquisitive nature. For for those of us who are not in in finance, uh Ben, and uh, you know, of course it's gonna be an interesting future. A lot of us uh aren't taught finances uh or financing in schools, you know, we're not taught how to manage our own personal finances, for example. Uh, some of us, you know, have never gotten that kind of instruction. What would you say to the average you know listener who's looking at, you know, hearing about all these different jargons, they're watching the financial news, maybe they're you know, they they dabble a bit in terms of maybe they have a small portfolio, you know, investment portfolio and so on. I have an accountant, but what should they basically want to know about uh finances or the finance? Yeah, that's that's a really good question, Johnny. And it's it's very important because in schools these days, as you know, they're not teaching finance, and and you know, unless you learn these things in in uni or something, then you'd be you're kind of a little bit stuck, especially if you if you hit some success on uh unexpectedly, and then you you earn more money than you uh than you may manage know how to manage. Yep. Um the the thing is these days, if you I'm not sure now I think Jamaica is also the same. When when you look at banking these days, um the banks don't want you to keep money there, you know, they want you to invest the money and and this kind of thing. It is something which I think should be taught more in schools, in all honesty, because you know, these days if you put money in a bank, what do you get? 1%. So you can easily you can easily buy an ETF in the bank and you can maybe get six, seven, eight, ten percent or something. So there's lots of things you can do, but as you say, most people don't understand that. And what I would say is before anyone is going to embark on on this kind of investment route or trying to to make a portfolio is is uh you need to do some research, you know, and you need to understand um how these things work, you know, what it means to firstly to lose money because this is this is a good possibility, right? But also when when you gain as well, what are you gonna do with it? Do you reinvest it? Do you take it out? You know, these are questions that you need to decide what kind what level of risk do you want to take, because this will determine what kind of products you want to use. So these things you need to really get the advice of a finance professional if um if you really want to go in in this direction. And as I say, this is this is the way the world is moving. Um the the banks don't want to uh don't want to to take people's money in that sense or give them interest, it's usually very poor. And there have been rumors here in Europe at least that the banks will start to charge negative interest and charge money from the people to hold money, which sounds very odd. But this is we're already being charged for that, Ben. We know all about that. Yeah. We're being charged if you keep your money in the bank and they don't see you for two years, even if your money's there, they they say that account is dormant. Uh they charge you now uh for so many different things. You're you're so right. It's it's almost like the bank they're saying to you, we don't want to keep your money, we just we just want to take it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, listen, we're out of time, but I really want to thank you so much, Sir Green, uh, for your time, for your awesome information that you've shared with us today, your skills. Uh I want to thank you so much uh for all that uh you continue to do in educating and mentoring uh those of us who need it, you know, career coach, mentor, and diversity champion, personal, uh of course, Coach Ben Green. Thank you so much, sir. Green. Thanks very much, Johnny. Thanks for having me on again. It's been a pleasure. Absolutely looking forward to speaking with you once again on the Two Life crew. We'll be right back. Donovan Dakers got music for you.