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As Morgan Stanley’s global head of electronic trading services, Eli Lederman could reasonably take the credit for pre-eminent equities trading technology that has won the Euromoney technology awards every year since they began. But he would never do that. He is refreshingly modest and genuine for someone who works at an investment bank, the sort of person who asks his right-hand woman, Nell Axelrod, to join him in every meeting – not because he needs her help or because she insists, but because he thinks she should be included.
When told that he is modest, Lederman jokes that he just hopes that no-one says of him what Winston Churchill said of Clement Attlee, that “he’s a modest man with much to be modest about”.
Lederman started working at Morgan Stanley 10 years ago, developing risk management software and working on derivatives and portfolio analytics and trading. “I was lucky to be working with a visionary man, Vikram Pandit, who was head of equity derivatives back then [now head of institutional securities],” says Lederman. “He decided that client technology was going to be a very important part of the institutional business and asked me to look into it. And he was right. We avoided trying to create some kind of parallel e-world of technology gizmos or trying to re-create the wheel, we just wanted to build something that would be a real-world solution.”
Lederman joined Morgan Stanley from Harvard where he had been working as a post-doctoral fellow in the field of experimental solid-state physics, researching high-temperature superconductors. Chance took him into investment banking. “Ten years ago a friend who I went to grad school with called me up. He’d moved to Morgan Stanley and asked if I might want to also,” recounts Lederman. “I had a great academic job at the time but also all the hardships that come with that. Also I was in love and thinking it would be nice to get married. American science was undergoing a funding crisis so it seemed like a good idea to have a different career if I was going to do that.”
Happiest among nerds He has no regrets about that decision. “It’s a fascinating time to be in this industry,” says Lederman, “and I love that I get to work with so many different types of people. We have the typical investment banking types, but also the real propeller heads, and the rocket scientists.” He then goes on to list just about every group of people someone in his job comes into contact with, from operations to external partners to clients, as great to work with too.
The type of people he enjoys working with most though are the nerds, because he thinks of himself as one of them. “There’s no shortage of people who I can relive the old days with. People who I can sit down and solve differential equations with and talk about how nice it is to be among nerds,” he says grinning.
Originally from New York City, Lederman moved with his wife and three young children to London to head Morgan Stanley’s global electronic trading business two years ago. He loves London and finds it an exciting time to be in Europe. Exciting because of the changing trading environment. “The continued growth of hedge funds here, including quant funds, really makes it an intellectually stimulating place to be,” says Lederman. He also enjoys the chance to go back to New York often, citing “the fantastic weather arbitrage” this year as a particularly good point.
One of his favourite places in London is the Cabinet War Rooms museum just off Trafalgar Square. “I’ve been on a bit of a Churchill discovery mission since I moved here,” confesses Lederman. “I’m obsessed with people who can lead such incredibly productive lives. The collected works of Churchill could fill bookshelves yet he would do things like take baths at noon and have his first drinks at lunch or earlier. He was a voracious reader, a painter, and he led a nation and a war. The rest of us feel we have accomplished something if we have a good day at work. It keeps all of our achievements in perspective – even winning the Euromoney awards!” You get the sense that Lederman secretly wishes that he too could take baths at noon.
