Leda Braga, CEO of Systematica Investments

Leida's Background and Career Trajectory

• Born in Brazil with a cultural focus on engineering and mathematics; began university at age 16.
• Earned an engineering degree and a PhD from Imperial College, where she held a lectureship.
• Moved to investment banking in 1993 (early 90s derivatives boom) at J.P. Morgan for 15 years, specializing in mathematical derivatives modeling.
• Attempted an internet venture during the early 2000s startup wave; the failure served as a "costly MBA."
• Joined Blue Crest Capital Management in 2001, initially to perform derivatives modeling while exploring systematic trading strategies.
• Founded Systematica as a spinoff from Blue Crest after 15 years, marking her third major entrepreneurial venture.

Systematica Firm Structure and Culture

• The firm currently employs over 100 staff members across five offices with 26 nationalities represented.
• Leadership emphasizes recruiting diverse talent and fostering an environment where employees can "act differently" without inhibition.
• A specific instance of cultural integration occurred in the Geneva office, where non-Muslim staff joined Muslim colleagues in a day of fasting during Ramadan as an act of solidarity.
• Leida acknowledges the daily struggle of market randomness and emphasizes that the company's name is "incidental" to the actual work.

Gender Diversity in Investment

• Systematica currently has very few women in its investment team despite the global demand for diverse perspectives.
• Three layers of bias limiting female participation are identified:
  • Cultural discouragement of women pursuing science and mathematics.
  • Inflexibility of trading hours due to the 24-7 nature of global markets.
  • Misconception that investing is inherently "risk-seeking," whereas the role is actually "intelligent risk management" or "capital commitment."

Strategic Innovation and Systematic Trading

• The firm is actively converting strategies previously exclusive to discretionary traders into systematic models.
• Recent expansions include trading yield curve relative value and volatility arbitrage in options markets.
• Systematizing these strategies allows for better measurement of transaction costs, market crowding, and participation levels.
• Leveraging electronic interfaces to synthesize liquidity from OTC markets (e.g., FX options) to create exchange-like execution environments.
• Trend following strategies have faced challenges in generating consistent positive returns; the firm is now applying machine learning to improve signal measurement and dimensionality reduction.
• While trend following offers negative correlation during market stress (a "holy grail" for risk mitigation), relative value strategies currently offer higher Sharpe ratios.

Future Outlook and Succession Planning

• The industry has faced a difficult market environment over the last five years.
• Systematica is diversifying its product offering and adapting client services in response to market conditions.
• Leida identifies "succession planning" as a primary personal and corporate goal to ensure the enterprise survives her tenure.
• The ultimate objective is to create an institution that can operate independently, provide career development, and serve clients after the founder detaches from day-to-day operations.