I was born in 1979, the youngest of three sons to immigrant parents who moved to England in the 1960s.

From an early age, I was exposed to mathematics as my dad was an accountant and my older brothers would tutor me on weekends. It quickly became clear that I had an inquisitive mind and an aptitude for numbers, which kind of ran in the family. Maths became a bit of a game to me, and by the time I went to junior school, I was way more advanced than my peers and the teachers were struggling to find anything challenging for me.

Fortunately my school was next door to a senior school and they allowed me to take my maths lessons with the older kids who were preparing for their GCSEs (which is normally taken at age 16). Thus, by age 11 (four years ahead of my class) I had passed my maths GSCE achieving a grade of A. My face was immediately plastered over the local newspapers and I was being called things like “BRAIN CHILD” and “WHIZZ KID”.

It was all terribly embarrassing because I was much younger than my older brothers and quite a social child who liked to make friends. All this publicity made me look like a bit of a freak and so I preferred to downplay it, and carry on as typical kid my age. I didn’t really want my academic achievements to define who I was, and deep down I just wanted to be treated like a normal kid and do what kids do, like play sports and computer games. I found that I was able to relate to all types of groups, the geeks, the popular sporty kids, and even sometimes the bullies.

Having passed the GCSE so early, I continued to progress to A level maths and pushed even further taking the exams at 13 & 14 years age and achieved the highest A grade again. Those results brought me to a crossroads where I was considering going to Cambridge University, four years before the normal age and really look like a “freak”. Or, find a way to stay at regular school and keep progressing with my maths studies. We approached the Open University, a remote learning institution that normally caters to mature students, and they made an exception and allowed me to do a maths degree whilst staying on at school and doing my other subjects as normal teenager.

By the time I was ready to go to regular University and move away from home, I had already achieved a First Class maths degree. I had been encouraged by some teachers to look into academia to really progress my maths, but my father had always instilled in me the goal of working hard and attaining financial security. This is what motivated me to study economics at the well-known London School of Economics (LSE), and an obvious path into finance, where I could use my mathematics skills to make money and build wealth.

After finishing LSE with a First in Economics, I applied to all the banks for their graduate training programs. I was shocked by how many rejections I got, despite having 2 First Class degrees. I got an internship at UBS in FX spot trading, but it seemed a bit too basic and many of the main traders were very old school, “Barrow Boy” types, who had not come from academic backgrounds. I was more analytical and wanted to use my maths skills, which led me towards options trading. Fortunately I got to spend a week with the FX options traders at UBS and fell in love with the product. This is what I wanted to do, I was confident I could be good at it. I didn’t get an offer from UBS, because the spot guys could see I wasn’t motivated and the options guys were full. I finally managed to land a job with CSFB, after a grueling day of 16 interviews, where they gave me an offer to join their graduate training program in equity derivatives.