About MahiFX
The e-FX Engine Room

James is a Burrito-hunting, turntable-spinning DJ and undercover geek. Since acquiring his first computer at the tender age of five, he has rarely been seen without some sort of gadget at his fingertips. After completing a degree in Computing at Imperial College London he ventured to the University of Manchester to seek a change of student life, and to complete a masters in Advanced Computer Science.

His technology career spans 17 years taking in a diverse range of industries ranging from vehicle telematics to call centre administration systems, however the last 11 years have been focused on the unique challenges of electronic trading. James was part of the team behind Lehman Brothers' award-winning FXLive platform. Post the infamous collapse he moved to the trading floor to join the team developing the hedging/pricing/analytics technology behind Barclays Capital’s BARX platform (one of the top-three FX single-dealer platforms). When he’s not working to improve the MahiFX products (which is rare) he can sometimes be found DJing in one of the many clubs/bars around London.

From his early humble ambitions of wanting to be a milkman on Canvey Island to several successful teenage sporting years playing football and cricket, Nick is the model Essex boy made good. With a passion for playing the drums, he secretly hopes that he'll be nearby when the Foo Fighters urgently need a replacement drummer, should Taylor Hawkins have a sudden, mysterious accident...

In the meantime though, Nick focuses his attention on Foreign Exchange, which has not only given him a long and successful career, but also a chance reunion with an old fellow pupil from school, Nicola, who later became his wife – well played!

Nick’s first step onto the FX ladder took him to the Bank of America where he was an FX Trader. Since then, he’s worked for numerous big names including UBS, Advanced Currency Markets, and most recently, CFH Clearing. With over 25 years of FX experience, we’re quite convinced that our Head of Retail Sales knows his onions. Word on the grapevine is that he also cuts some mean shapes on the dance floor, something we're all quietly hoping we'll see first hand at the Christmas party.

Bonnie has been around, so to speak. During her career she has worked in Swiss, German, and British banks, as well as a brief stint at the Queen’s stockbrokers. She eventually decided it was time for a bit of antipodean action and wound up here at Mahi. Recruited into the infamous Barbie’s Army, Bonnie has an unrivalled collection of anecdotes to tell from her experiences abroad, including the time she went to Lithuania without checking the weather forecast first and promptly arrived in a pair of stilettos.

On meeting the client for the first time, she immediately took a tumble in the snow taking him down with her – suppose that’s one way of, quite literally, breaking the ice. Bonnie also moonlights as a professional shopper, blessed with an incredible ability to navigate most malls blindfolded (if such a situation were ever to arise). She is uber organized, and loves nothing more than a bit of good old-fashioned order; demonstrated by her colour-coordinated wardrobe, and that warning look when our desks begin to look a little messy. With two young’uns, Bonnie currently spends a lot of her time ensuring she’s not covered in things she shouldn’t be, whilst singing Old MacDonald in a faux American accent.

We cordially present to you Mr Alex Ridgers, providing a touch of class to proceedings. Having spent most of his upbringing in a top hat and tailcoat at Ascot Racecourse with his horse, Weekendatbernies, Alex finally tore himself away to study Business and Economics at Bristol University. Following his graduation, he whipped off his mortarboard and made a beeline straight for London, where he began his career with IG Index PLC as a quoting dealer.

Since then, Alex has added ABN AMRO Bank, CMC Markets, and GKFX to the list of companies lucky enough to have him, under roles such as Head of Algorithmic Trading. Most recently, Alex has been working for Oanda as a trader, focusing on such tasks as model building to back test flow for optimum risk management. Needless to say, with all this experience, we’re pretty smug that he’s jumped ship and come over to Team Mahi.

When he’s not working, you might find Alex lovingly tending to his collection of cigars, some of which date back to the 1970s and are all housed in his very own humidor. If he’s not there, he’ll probably be annihilating some poor soul at a game of Scrabble. This is a game that Alex does not approach blithely, after having appeared on a Scrabble-based game show which saw him achieve the highest first round score of the whole series. We won’t go into the words he used but let’s just say he made the letter ‘X’ look very popular, and no, we’re not sure how to pronounce the words it featured in.

After snapping her up as a fresh graduate, Alizee is now our Financial Engineer - putting her MSc in Investment and Finance to excellent use in the Forex industry.

Originally from the land of striped tops and berets (also sometimes known as France), Alizee is a true citizen of the world and grew up in six different countries, including Indonesia and Chile. Thanks to her globetrotting, she speaks French, Spanish, English and a bit of Dutch, so we’re pretty impressed.* However, despite all of this travelling, she remains true to her French roots and will never pass on the offer of some good cheese and red wine.

Constantly adding to an endless list of skills, Alizee enjoys a range of extreme sports to fuel her competitive nature, and we hear she’s pretty nifty on a pair of skis. She’s always ready for a challenge and can’t bear the thought of losing, which makes her the perfect new member of Team Mahi. Oh, and she comes complete with a lovely French accent too!

*read: intimidated.

Joining our ever-growing MahiFX sub-group of rugby players, Will has assumed his position on the Analytics team. Originally from Wales, he first ventured to Manchester to study Physics, and was taught by none other than Professor Brian Cox, as well as a number of Nobel Prize winners, during his degree.

Despite undergoing 24 operations on his leg following a serious injury at the age of 18, Will still went on to become the captain of the university rugby club for two years, and won an award from the university - so he’s well practised in both rugby and necking pints.

After graduating, Will moved down south and we promptly snapped him up. Although a fluent Welsh-speaker, he’s still an avid supporter of the England rugby team – helping us to ensure that we really outnumber David in the London office. Will joins MahiFX as our Analytics Assistant, where he’ll be Alex’s analytics wing-man to support our clients.

Andrew is coming to terms with being a "veteran" technologist. Having worked in a brand wall of companies: Morgan Stanley,UBS, RBS, BBC News Interactive & Sony R&D he's seen a variety of situations from developing low-latency trading systems to his time as a CTO, carefully balancing management and strategy with advertising optimisation algorithms.

His soft Welsh accent has been dulled by his time at Cambridge University where he read Computer Science just as they introduced studying Java at the university. He claims to appreciate a good glass of wine (perhaps not his 6th) and is an enthusiastic guitarist. Despite being relatively quiet at work, we can always count on Andrew to crack out the first (and last) moves on the dance floor at any staff party; a sight we’ll never tire of seeing.

Our fine tech team has expanded again with the addition of Zoltan: a computer wizard and self-certified handyman extraordinaire, complete with a superhero-esque name! Having graduated from a degree in computer science at Eotvos Lorand University of Science, Budapest, Zoltan began his career with Morgan Stanley's Java engineering team. This later led to his move to London into a more finance-oriented role. Following a short stint with RBC, he made his way over to us, where we’re more than happy to have him.

When he’s not sat tapping away at his desk, Zoltan enjoys cycling, watching a good Sci-Fi movie, or heading out into London’s nightlife, where you can be certain that he’ll be the last one standing with a fresh tray of shots. With a diverse and seemingly endless list of talents, from a slightly unnatural ability to annihilate anybody who dares challenge him to a game of chess, to a newfound ability to demolish and landscape his entire garden from scratch, we’re pretty confident that Zoltan is more than capable of solving any problem we chuck his way.

Lee is our resident petrol head and heads up the Christchurch development team. Some say he was raised by sheep, and can only turn left. All we know is he's the Stig's kiwi cousin. He provides critical technical support to his less tech-savvy colleagues, and his two key mantras are 'have you tried turning it on and off again' and 'try Google'. As a founding member of the MahiFX Harriers he is a keen runner and currently holds the MahiFX Half Marathon record.

He has over 12 years of software development experience since graduating from Canterbury University with an honours degree in Computer Science. He has worked in a wide range of industries, most recently in financial services and online advertising. He returned home to Christchurch in 2010 having lived and worked in Australia for eight years.

Hailing from Scotland Sam ran as far from his parents as he could, whilst still staying the “right” side of the border, to study Computing science at the University of Aberdeen. Having spent the sandwich year of his degree pretending to be James Bond he graduated with 1st Class honours and promptly left for Aotearoa. After returning from traveling Sam joined the hunt for oil. Realising that building software was way more fun than fixing errant device drivers on ships in the North Sea he moved to London not only because his wife refused to go to Aberdeen, but because it gave him the opportunity to get deeply involved with hardcore technical challenges - from levelling the playing field between retail and institutional traders, to consulting at major investment banks.

Deciding that he’d grown out of playing sardines Sam initially gave up cramming himself on to public transport in London by furiously cycling the 20 km to and from work. Then, deciding this was not a sustainable solution, he packed up and moved to greener pastures in our New Zealand office, where he now happily enjoys a peaceful and short journey to work. Not content with making sure his software delivers Sam enjoys testing the theory that there is no such thing as a bad single malt and will happily convince you that ice and whisky do not mix.

Ollie is our latest West Country lad to join the team, although sadly refuses to use his accent around us, which we can understand but are nevertheless disappointed at.

Having attended the University of Oxford for five years and becoming a Master of Mathematics, Ollie felt that what he was missing in his life was actually more maths. Therefore, he spent a further four years at the University of Southampton to complete a PhD, specifically researching the ‘oscillations of rotating and magnetic neutron stars using a novel time-and- memory-saving framework suitable for approximately-spherical problems’.

In his spare time, he enjoys studying his family history, and has so far managed to find generation after generation of poor weavers since the 14th Century. Although he’s yet to find any links to royalty, he remains oddly optimistic about that he will eventually do so.

Ollie has a pretty impressive set of IT skills that we won’t argue with, and has plenty of experience in the financial world working for JPMorgan and Daiwa Capital Markets Europe in the past. When he’s not sat working away on his computer, you’ll usually find Ollie feeding his McFlurry addiction, or asking if anybody else would like a McFlurry, in an effort to conceal his need to go and buy another.

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Dan began life in Tussock Creek  – a metropolis in the deep south of New Zealand where men are men and sheep are nervous (don’t worry even most Kiwis don’t know where it is either).  Having flown the coop to study Computer Science at Canterbury University he soon developed a love of fast cars and motorcycles. However, given all but one of his vehicles is currently off the road following crashes, we can’t help but wonder whether he should consider a new hobby. David has enthusiastically suggested flying to complete the Mahi display team…  

Dan joins the technology team as a dab hand at all things coding, although his occasional tendency to wear Adidas scuffs to the office is raising eyebrows with the fashion police. Whilst the NZ tech boys continue to school him in the way of the Matrix, Dan’s other interests include a love of kale chips, Red Bull and ensuring that he maintains a watchful eye over his beloved beer fridge.

Nicole - or “Sparkles” as she is more commonly known in the office due to her love of all things that glitter - is Manager of the MahiFX legal, compliance and finance teams. When she isn’t dragging her colleagues for PB runs round Hagley Park or leading boot camps in the boardroom she plays Mum to two little girls at home (as well as to the boys in the office at work).

Nicole has a double degree in law and accounting, is a qualified barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand and a Chartered Accountant. Nicole began her career in the corporate tax team at Ernst & Young in New Zealand before moving to London for five years and working for JPMorgan Chase and AXA Corporate Solutions in their tax, compliance and finance teams. Upon her return to New Zealand, Nicole spent a little more time with Ernst & Young again, before moving to Infiniti Capital Markets, embarking on motherhood, and finally joining the MahiFX team in Christchurch.

Katie was unfortunate enough to be working in Australia until we valiantly rescued her from our convict neighbours and bought her home to the Christchurch office.

Appearances are deceiving; quiet and mild mannered by day, we are convinced there is more to Katie. Rumour has it she is a snake charmer, having previously owned a 2.5m Diamond Python as a pet.

Katie joins the Finance and Compliance team and has promptly doubled the female quota in the Christchurch Office much to the delight of Nicole who now has someone to talk about awful TV with and take shopping.

With a background in accounting, finance and compliance, Katie brings with her a wealth of experience in dealing with regulated entities abroad.

Despite his expression in the photograph, we are pleased to announce that this man doesn’t have a single criminal conviction (although we’ve had this checked, just to err on the side of caution). Quite ironically, one of Paul’s jobs as Chief Financial Officer is to monitor compliance here at MahiFX, and he ensures that everything we do is safe and legal. Having spent twelve years climbing the Ladder of Importance at Ernst & Young, Paul jumped ship to MahiFX and since then hasn’t failed to astound us with his tax, legal, finance and capital markets knowledge.

He can usually be found uttering his favourite phrase, “computer says no.” as he repeatedly prevents us from misbehaving, and keeps us on the straight and narrow as best he can. With his dapper sense of style, Paul saunters into the office every morning safe in the knowledge that in one fell swoop, he has reduced everyone else’s choice of attire to the same level as your Saturday morning hangover pyjamas. This competitiveness is something Paul never leaves at home whatever the occasion, so rest assured that we couldn’t find anyone as good at what he does than Paul – he is literally better than everyone.

As well as heading the Quality Assurance team at MahiFX, Tony leads a double life as a wannabe pro surfer and Dad to three teenagers. He is also famous for his love of antique Japanese cars, his prize possession being his $200 dollar two tone white and rust 1986 Toyota Corolla. Not embarrassing at all parked outside the MahiFX offices. Day to day, Tony is responsible for ensuring that our products are functional and intuitive as well as serving as a software and hardware tester (attested by the vigorous pounding his keyboard receives, much to the indignation of the disgruntled colleagues who are within earshot).

Tony has had an extensive career both in New Zealand and abroad, namely in London at JPMorgan and SBC Warburg in operations and latterly at Hermes in quality assurance. Upon his return to New Zealand Tony worked at Sungard and Northern Arch in a quality assurance and software design capacity before joining the MahiFX team and helping to build and launch the retail trading platform.

It took her a while to find us, but after graduating from Loughborough University with a degree in Politics & Economics and a stint behind an equities desk, Nicola eventually saw the light. Joining Team Mahi and embracing all things fun and Forex, we are proud to introduce our Client Services Executive.

Nicola is a pretty diverse girl, and is certainly no one-trick pony. Her uni days saw her take up a keen interest in flying as a member of the University Air Squadron… that is, until she realised she hated flying. Nowadays, Nicola tends to keep her feet on the ground - usually behind the decks at a fancy London club or bar. This budding little entrepreneur started off moonlighting as a party planner but was repeatedly disappointed by the number of DJs who failed to impress. Nipping the problem in the bud, she combined her love for parties and music with her dislike of other DJs and became one half of a DJ-ing duo. Adding to our growing list of resident Mahi DJs, Nicola ensures that our clients are left wanting for nothing.

After Achieving a Master’s degree in Management, Economics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, our youngest - and most competitive - team member joined MahiFX via 'The Apprentice' style internship. Luckily we never made her run around London dressed as a chicken and she didn't end up 'fired'.

On the contrary, Kate was offered a full-time position with the marketing team. Leaving her little hometown of Knutsford (up in t’North), off she headed to the Big Smoke, to discover MahiFX, bootcamp and burgers.

Kate is the team’s literary genius. With a flair for catchy tag lines and perfect grammar, the marketing team is both intimidated and lost without her. Despite this being her first job since graduating, she knows it is the best place to work in the world and we know we are lucky to have her. Sorry about that Lord Sugar.

Justin’s first real interest in currencies sparks from when he was rushing to his bank during lunch, debit card clutched in hand, to buy as many Deutsche Marks as were available (it wasn’t that many). The year was 1992, just a couple of days before Britain was unceremoniously booted out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) – the precursor to the Euro.

However, despite the bank’s lousy retail exchange rates, the trade was profitable (hurrah!), such was the magnitude of GBP’s crash - a certain Mr Soros reportedly made $1 billion on his trade. Inspired by this experience, Justin began working for a number of media organisations, covering markets including The Wall Street Journal and Thomson Reuters. Also on this impressive list is consultancy work for a boutique investment bank in the City of London, and the UN-mandated Common Fund for Commodities. On the rare occasions when he is not thinking about markets and the economy, Justin enjoys sampling English ales, watching Spaghetti Westerns and eating curry - preferably all at the same time.