On July 25th, NHC Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS) was honoured to have John Kwan to share his experiences and valuable advices about how to be successful in the field of capital market. John Kwan is an experienced professional with robust knowledge in trading, market risk, FICC asset management and corporate treasury liquidity pool. His speech sheds light into different aspects of a career in capital market asset management.
John graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor of Physiology and an MBA in financial engineering from Schulich School of Business. John started his career as a proprietary trader. He explained the difference between a market maker and a proprietary trader. As a proprietary trader, John traded on the company’s account in order to generate profit and speculate on market risk. A Market maker, on the contrary, create liquidity to the market. John explained that bond is like a different person. A market maker needs to understand the specific features of each type of bond in order to be successful. Traders have to be comfortable handling risks and pressures, while being confident through ups and down.
John latter became the director of Capital Market. John emphasized that it is very important to be clear about your own strengths and weaknesses, and push yourself to improve on the weaknesses. Uncomfortable talking in the public as he was, he is now a frequent volunteer speaker at events like NHC speaker series.
John also suggested that mentors could provide essential guidance along the career path or personal life, especially during the time when facing life-changing decisions. For instance, one of his mentors advised him to work in Chicago, which eventually became a milestone in his career development. In addition, John indicated that it was the value added at work, rather than the money made, that truly mattered.
Another career insight John provided is that, essentially every job is a sales job. People are either trying to sell themselves or sell their works. Talking about office politics, John that It is important to learn about the management level and find good manager. Both luck and strong capability are essential alone the journey.
Great thanks to John Kwan for providing those great insights! We’d also like to thank the audiences for their active participation. We hope young professionals and new graduates who attended this session could benefit from this great learning and networking platform built by NHC Distinguished Speaker Series. Please stay tuned. We will bring more high-quality events to you.