"Innovation and Excellence"

Tell us about your job?
I work at the Sales Desk, as part of a team that sells unusual and/or complex financial products and services known as structured products. Our job is to carefully examine our customers' requirements and often the extent to which their earnings are exposed to differences in energy market prices.
Our goal is to "remove" price-movement risks from their energy production, sales or distribution portfolios and to value their production assets and flexibilities as accurately as possible.
On the basis of these analyses and discussions with our clients we put together solutions that are usually tailor-made to meet their requirements and involve various combinations of physical products and derivative instruments and mostly options. We sometimes even help them determine the consequences on their accounts under IFRS standards.
We ultimately develop an overall structure that we model with traders. Our job requires us to work very closely with traders, customers and support functions. It also requires skills in various disciplines, such as accounting, finance and engineering.

Can you give an example of a complex project you have worked on?
Working with exotic trading staff our team developed a "proxy" to replicate a benchmark index used in Asia to sell LNG shipments. The difficulty was that this index was developed by customs officials and could not be used for trading purposes. We put together a basket that replicates this index and can now offer our customers "best-of" solutions between the other LNG markets (NYMEX in the US and NBP in the UK) and Asia.

What did you study in school?
I studied finance in business school and went on to get a post-graduate degree in Market Finance at ESSEC in 1992.

What about your professional background…?
JI began my career with Société Générale in 1995, in the Internal Auditing department, which advises and conducts auditing assignments for senior management. Auditors are involved in all aspects of the bank's business and report to management on performance, risk management and strategic developments within the group's various entities. I came to Gaselys in 2001, when it was founded, to head Support Functions, and was in charge of control staff (in the back office, middle office, and Risk department) and of the Finance and Legal departments.
About a year and a half ago I stopped being a manager and moved to my current position in sales.

What made you want to change?
I wanted a job that offered more independence, where I would continually be dealing with new challenges that require creativity, imagination and quick thinking. This was particularly motivating since Gaselys is right at the cutting edge when it comes to using financial techniques in gas and power markets.

What sort of education does a job like yours usually require?
It's variable. Some of my colleagues are engineers and one has a degree in economics. All have worked with a trading room in one way or another and this experience is quickly put to good use.

What are your career plans now?
First of all, my goal two years from now is to make this business a major force within the market and in our company. As for the rest, I will have to wait and see.