Cai Xiao is a Quantitative Strategist in the Economics & Investment Strategy Department and has been with GIC for over six years. Her role involves various components including data engineering and management, signal research, portfolio construction and optimisation, trading strategies implementation, and portfolio analytics. Working with researchers and portfolio managers, her team ensures smooth daily end-to-end quant business operations.
Outside of work, she tries to keep to a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise goals. She believes this is a significant factor in sustaining a positive work life.
Why did you decide to join GIC?
I came across this opportunity at my school’s banking and finance career fair. The GIC ambassadors were friendly and approachable. Through networking, I had a sense of what it would be like to work at GIC and realised that it could be a great place for me to build my career as a fresh graduate.
Since then, I’ve come to learn that GIC is an investment firm with plenty of opportunities and talented people which makes working here both very challenging and rewarding.
What does your typical workday look like?
I arrive at work a little earlier to avoid traffic and ease into the day while the office is still quiet. I start my day catching up emails and market headlines, also making a small workplan for the day. During the day, I look after quant strategies operations from data, signal generations to portfolio analytics. Depending on business requirements, I could spend time conducting signal research for new ideas, working on strategy enhancement and productionisation. Regularly, I have meetings with my colleagues within the Strats team to discuss market insights and share new technical capabilities.
What do you like most about working here?
The variety of tasks I could be assigned, from the beginning to the end of the quantitative process, is the favorite part of my job. Being able to work or communicate with some of the best in the industry has been a learning opportunity for me. I can hardly imagine being able to access all of this before I had joined GIC.
We also have various inspiring sessions about diversity and inclusion, raising awareness and promoting a more open and inclusive culture, including having female leaders within the firm encouraging younger professionals like us to step up more.
How would you describe the learning & development culture at GIC?
I began my career as an IT analyst specialising in technology infrastructure before taking on my current position as a Quantitative Strategist, which allows me to associate much more closely with investment professionals. I was able to articulate my thoughts and express myself more assertively as a result of the exposure I received.
What you should know before joining GIC
Every task assigned to you provides an opportunity to learn and shine. Develop your personal brand alongside them. Quantitative strategists like us harness financial knowledge, programming competency, and quantitative, analytical, and data engineering skills to help our business to achieve its goals.