Jeff Hutchins of Jefferies: Embracing flexible technology platforms
Inside the Sell Side
Jeff Hutchins
Co-Head of Asia Equities | Jefferies
Jeff has been based in Tokyo for over 15 years. He joined Jefferies in Jan 2018 to support the firm’s rapid expansion into Asia. Prior to joining Jefferies he spent time at JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers. Jeff received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology.
Technology’s importance is only second to having the most talented and digitally adept sales traders.
Q. Tell us what you do and what your priorities are as Co-Head Asia Equities at Jefferies.
I help to lead our Asia Equity business, focusing on Execution Services, an area where I have spent the last 15 years. Jefferies has always had a “clients first” philosophy, and therefore we are highly focused on ensuring we have the right resources and technology to deliver the best solutions for our clients. With the competitive landscape rapidly evolving, Jefferies is committed to developing our talent and technology to deliver real value and solutions to our clients. This means recruiting, training, and retaining the very best people who can offer services our clients want.
Having the right technology that empowers our top talent with digital tools to provide next-level service and client experience is paramount. For the research team, this means using proprietary alternative data and powerful publishing tools. For sales, it is a next-generation client and content management system. For trading, a machine learning based client interest model is used to match buyers and sellers.
Q. What are the drivers of Jefferies’ digital transformation strategy, especially for the trading, research and execution desks?
The key to our digital transformation is part internal, part external.
We equip our Sales, Trading, and Research teams with the tools and data to provide best-in-class service and insights to our clients. We adopt an open minded and flexible approach to digitalization, through technology developed internally by our extensive Quant team and by collaborating with top FinTech vendors when it makes sense to do so. There are many firms that try to do too much on their own, without recognizing that there are some incredibly powerful solutions present in the FinTech community.
Externally, we give our clients direct access to our technology. Case in point, we spent over a decade developing our award-winning algorithm trading platform for buy-side traders. Our client-facing technologies are known for their extensive features and quick customization options.
More automation will happen when brokers start to embrace flexible technology platforms and listen to their employees on where the pain points are.
Q. How is Jefferies transforming the trading customer experience and what role does technology play?
Our traditional high-touch sales trading is a perfect example of how we have embarked on our digital transformation journey. We have taken what typically is a low-tech role and super charged it with data. With our proprietary quant system, sales traders have unprecedented information and insights at their fingertips, transforming our manual process to fully automated ones.
The extra time freed up by automation allows us to dive deeper into markets and stocks to provide higher quality execution advice. Each client receives customized content and information about topics and stocks they actually care about, removing noise from the conversation and turning up signals. Technology’s importance is only second to having the most talented and digitally adept sales traders.
Q. Do you agree that sell-side trading processes are still manual today in APAC? What can drive more automation?
Yes, many processes are still manual. My experience has been that most brokers have been plagued with legacy systems and unwilling to invest in automation, particularly for traditional cash equities. More automation will happen when brokers start to embrace flexible technology platforms and listen to their employees on where the pain points are.
Another key to driving automation is attracting top technology talent like those from big tech firms such as Google and Amazon. We have found that one or two exceptional programmers can out produce an army of average ones.
Q. Jefferies is known for being a robust securities trading platform with solid research and advisory solutions. Do you see opportunities for the research management process to be more efficient or to be transformed with data and technology?
Research still has tremendous opportunities to undergo digital transformation. We are working on a next generation content management platform which will give our clients customized content and insights through the medium of their choice (text, audio, video). We see so many inefficiencies in areas like Corporate Access and conferences that can be evolved into truly digital and even on-demand based services. There is more to come soon from Jefferies in this area.