Meet the Macro Hive Team

Bilal Hafeez
CEO & Head of Research

Bilal Hafeez is the Founder and CEO of Macro Hive. He was Global Head of International Fixed Income Strategy at Nomura between 2016 and 2019 and held various senior roles at Deutsche Bank between 2002 and 2015 including Head of Multi-Asset Research, Advisor to the CEO, Head of Asia Research in Singapore and Global Head of Foreign Exchange Research. Bilal started his career at JP Morgan in 1998 and was rated #1 market strategist by Euromoney and Institutional Investor between 2004 and 2013. He pioneered FX investment and smart beta benchmarks and was an Honorary Visiting Professor of Finance at Cass Business School. He studied Economics at St Johns College, Cambridge and has seven cats, four chickens, a beehive and one dog.

Andrew Simon
Chief Operating Officer

Andrew has 25 years in finance on both the buy and sell side. He co-founded Eschaton Opportunities Fund, a $100 million+ hedge fund focused on global thematic value investing. Earlier, he led JP Morgan's institutional sales business across foreign exchange and emerging markets for Europe. He spearheaded initiatives around tail risk hedging and cross asset structuring. Before this, he ran Lehman's global derivative sales business, managed the European currency option trading and derivative research business at Deutsche Bank, and started at Cooper Neff/BNP. He credits them for his amazing foundation in finance. Andrew lives in London with his wife Valeria and son Alexander. He loves to ski and dreams of beating Rodger Federer on the tennis court.

Dominique Dwor-Frecaut
Senior Researcher

Dominique Dwor-Frecaut is a macro strategist based in Los Angeles. She has been producing alpha generating trade ideas in FX and rates in EM and G10 at established and startup macro hedge funds in the US since 2011, including at Bridgewater. She has also produced in depth analysis of central banks policies and procedures drawing on her experience at the New York Fed, the IMF and the World Bank as well as on the buy and sell side. Before moving to the US she covered Asian and global EMs at Barclays capital, ABN AMRO and RBS from Singapore. She holds a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Mustafa Chowdhury
Chief US Rates Strategist

Mustafa comes with over 30 years of experience in the industry. He has held senior positions at several leading firms, including Voya Investments (formerly ING US), Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns and Freddie Mac. He has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in trading, research, and portfolio management of G-10 Macro Rates, MBS and Derivatives.

Caroline Grady
Head of EM Economics

Caroline Grady a global economist at Macro Hive, specialising in emerging markets. Formerly, she was a Senior EM Economist at Deutsche Bank covering Central Europe and other countries within the EMEA region. She has also worked as a Leader Writer at the Financial Times writing the FT View on various macro themes. She started her career at Oxford Economics where she worked on EM Asia and also worked on Asia at BMI Research (now Fitch Solutions). Caroline has an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Mirza Baig
EM Strategy / Senior Macro

Mirza has been researching and trading global FX & rates products for over 19 years. His career boasts affiliations with premier sell-side entities such as Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Bank. Moreover, his invaluable expertise from the buy-side perspective at Point 72 positions him uniquely in the industry.

Bert Gochet
Head of Global EM Strategy

Bert Gochet is a macro strategist at Macro Hive, specialising in Emerging Markets strategy. Between 2009 and 2017, he was co-head of EM strategy with a focus on fixed income and currencies at JP Morgan. He held other senior research roles at Bank of America and UBS in the 2000s. Bert has lived in all time zones, from Latin America and the US via Europe to Asia. He has been ranked runner-up in Institutional Investor EM FI surveys. He studied at the University of Chicago and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

John Tierney
Senior Researcher

Over a 30-year career as a sell side analyst, John covered the structured finance and credit markets before serving as a corporate market strategist. In recent years, he has moved into a global strategist role.

Sam van de Schootbrugge
Research Analyst

Sam van de Schootbrugge is a Macro Research Analyst at Macro Hive, currently completing his PhD in Economics. He has a master’s degree in economic research from the University of Cambridge and has worked in research roles for over 3 years in both the public and private sector. His research expertise is in international finance, macroeconomics and fiscal policy.

Richard Jones
Research Analyst

Richard Jones has traded and invested in interest rate and FX market portfolios spanning three decades, both on the buy-side and sell-side. He was also an FX & Rates Strategist with Bloomberg News’ Markets Live and First Word products. Currently, Richard is a Macro Strategist for VDK Capital, a London-based venture capital firm.

Henry Occleston
Research Analyst

Henry Occleston is a Strategist who focuses on European markets. Formerly, he worked in European credit and rates strategy at Mizuho Bank, and market strategy at Lloyds Bank. He holds a BA in Economics from Durham University, and an MSc in Economics & Social History from the University of Oxford.

Benjamin Ford
Researcher

Benjamin Ford is a Researcher at Macro Hive. Benjamin studied BSc Financial Mathematics at Cardiff University and MSc Finance at Cass Business School, his dissertations were on the tails of GARCH volatility models, and foreign exchange investment strategies during crises, respectively. He has previously worked as a Summer Research Student at Cardiff University School of Mathematics where he designed the risk pricing model for their £600 million campus developments.

Dalvir Mandara
Quantitative Researcher

Dalvir Mandara is a Quantitative Researcher at Macro Hive. Dalvir has a BSc Mathematics and Computer Science and an MSc Mathematical Finance both from the University of Birmingham. Prior to joining Macro Hive, he worked in the FinTech space applying quantitative analytics, machine learning and high-performance computing methods to investment analytics. His areas of research are in the applications of machine learning, deep learning, and alternative data for predictive modelling of financial markets.

Viresh Kanabar
Research Analyst

Viresh Kanabar is an investment strategist with 8+ years of experience, notably contributing to portfolio construction and risk management at CCLA Investment Management, a £12 billion fund. Viresh was also a voting member of the Investment Committee and ran the private asset valuation process. Before his role at CCLA, Viresh made significant contributions during his three-year tenure as a Consultant at Deloitte, where he was a part of the largest P&C merger in 2016.

Martina Uikyte
Head of Marketing & Growth

Martina has spent 13 years in financial markets starting her career in FX across London, New York and Singapore and most recently was a VP in financing sales at Societe Generale. Prior to this, Martina worked as a VP Repo Trader at Lloyds bank. Likes: good Italian food and sporting challenges. Dislikes: people not taking out liquids or laptops from their bags at airport security and slowing down the line!

Andrew Lofthouse
Senior Sales

Andrew has over 17 years of investment banking experience before joining Macro Hive. His last post saw him as Head of EMEA FICC Sales at Citadel Securities, before this he was Co-Head of Central Bank and Sovereign Wealth Funds at Nomura where he has prior experience covering Central Banks, Supra-sovereign agencies, and government officials at RBS, Santander and Morgan Stanley. Away from Macro Hive, Andrew spends his time with his other passion – wine. He is an Assistant Winemaker at a vineyard in Devon as well as teaches wine qualifications and hosts events for wine and cheese. He even holds a Cheese Diploma too!

David Vasey
Chief of Staff

David has spent over 20 years in the Banking sector and most recently was the CAO for the Nomura G10 and EM Foreign Exchange business in EMEA. Prior to Nomura David worked at Lehman Brothers in a variety of Finance roles spanning Real Estate Product Control & Capital Markets MIS. David's career started at Zurich Financial Services where he qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant.

Pranav Gattani
Sales Operations Analyst

Pranav Gattani is a Sales Operations Analyst at Macro Hive. Prior to this, he was an Associate at Third Bridge Group. Pranav studied Finance and Business at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Matthew Tibble
Commissioning Editor

Matthew has worked as an editorial consultant and freelance editor for companies such as RiskThinking.AI, JDI Research, and FutureScape248. He holds a PhD in English Literature and formerly held a competitive research fellowship at the University of London. In his free time, he collects rare books and investigates the obscurities of Renaissance literature.

Oliver Neads
Editorial Assistant

Oliver previously worked as a junior editor at Oxford Analytica, an international geopolitical analysis and advisory firm. He holds a BA (Hons) in Modern History from the University of Chichester and an MA in War Studies from King's College London.

Craig Buckler
Web Technology Engineer

Craig has been a senior web developer for more than 25 years. He's led award winning online projects for organisations including the UK Parliament, European Parliament, Microsoft, HP, Vodafone, ITN, Sky, The Times, The Guardian, FT.com, The Wall St Journal, and more. Craig is passionate about web technologies and performance and has written many books, articles, and courses. He lives in Devon with his wife Claire and two children and enjoys cycling and motor racing when not tinkering with code.

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