Simon founded Swapskills, a financial markets consulting and training company, in 2002.

Simon joined ABN AMRO in January 1999 as the Head of Derivative Marketing & Structuring for Europe, Middle East & Africa.

In this role, he was responsible for re-focusing the team's resources to a more value-added approach, as well as being responsible for the delivery of fixed income derivative product, including MTFX / LTFX and credit derivatives, into all of the European time zone (EMEA) to both asset and liability-side clients. One of his major roles encompassed delivering internal and external training courses on the practical applications of derivative products.

Prior to this Simon was an Executive Director for CIBC World Markets, where he was Head of Nordic coverage in the Financial Products group. The products sold by the Financial Products group included credit products (asset swaps / credit derivatives, asset-backed and high yield), equity-linked structures, commodity derivatives (from precious & base metals to energy products), interest rate products (with a focus to structures rather than vanilla liability business) and FX-linked products. Tax products were also put on the agenda with the appointment of a tax specialist.

Before CIBC World Markets Simon was appointed as an Assistant Director for HSBC Markets where he was Head of European Marketing, Derivative Sales with a team of 8 people. This was after a five year spell at First Chicago, most of which was spent on the interest rate derivatives desk. His career started in 1984 at Continental Illinois where he joined the graduate training scheme as an international Relationship Banker.

Financial Markets Training

Based in Dubai, Simon is now involved with full-time training in financial products and derivatives where his clients include major investment and commercial banks, government agencies and regulators and corporate entities.

His courses have been designed not only for markets and client-facing staff but also Credit functions, HR (Understanding Financial Markets) and Private Client / Banking divisions. The courses are oriented towards spotting opportunities and applying knowledge in a practical way as opposed to taking a mathematical and academic approach so that training can be more easily turned into revenue generation.

 

With complete access to Bloomberg, the courses use current market rates and conditions. Frequent participant interaction and the use of exercises and case studies reinforce the concepts under discussion.

 

Accreditation: Simon was assessed as an advanced facilitator by Standard Chartered Bank in October 2009.