The drive, the passion for education and entrepreneurial spirit, all traits held in abundance by the VB Advisory founders, led to the launch of the Young Professionals Program in 2017.
Our influential Young Professionals Program focusses on graduates with a quantitative background and aims to create a new generation of quants within the financial sector. The Young Professionals Program provides the opportunity to gain necessary experience as a quantitative consultant in the financial sector whilst working for one of our well-established clients. We believe at VB Advisory in flexibility and entrepreneurship and therefore encourage the Young Professional to take a role in designing the program to suit their own needs and aspirations. The program is set up in such a way as to incorporate a full day per week where education or personal development are accommodated.
An average working week consists of 4 working days based at one of our clients under the supervision of both our client and your personal mentor. The program’s aim is for our Young Professional to gain hands-on experience and to develop their personal and business capabilities. Whereas the remaining weekday centres on education and personal growth. As a participant in this program you will follow our in-house educational program where VB Advisory offers the opportunity and room to study for your post graduate diplomas (e.g. FRM or CFA). We believe that by focussing on specific skills, one can make himself or herself indispensable to the financial sector.
Furthermore, as you are probably already now already aware of, VB Advisory actively participates in pro bono work and we offer you the chance to help create a better world by helping us by participating in one of our pro bono projects. So, in a nutshell, does a working week as described above arouse your curiosity? Does a pro bono project which could involve for example, helping kids with autism, finding optimal play-ground solutions for children with disabilities or helping start-ups with their data requirements grab your attention?
Now’s not the time for hesitation, contact us right away! Our long-term goal is to create a sustainable future. For both you, your career and the world around you!
Here is a recap of what we have to offer…
Are you ready to take the next step? Are you an ambitious, entrepreneurial (soon to be) graduate and does a working week as described above sound like the perfect match for you? Don’t hesitate and send your cv and short introduction letter to info@vbadvisory.nl.
Young Professionals Program
18 Months
- Market-conform salary including great secondary benefits and public transport card
- Personalised program, setting out your goals and milestones
- Hands-on experience gained whilst working for the major financial firms
- Participation in VB Advisory’s in-house training
- Work experience in a young and entrepreneurial minded environment
- Opportunity to study for the most globally respected and widely recognized postgraduate certificates (e.g. CFA or FRM)
- Prospect of creating a sustainable future by assisting with pro bono projects
- Option of a permanent position working for one of our clients
* Note, that due the exclusivity of our program we only have a limited number of places at the Young Professionals Program.
Of course, in order to gain the best insights into our Young Professionals Program, what better than to read a thumb nail description of those who have already joined our team. Feel free to contact any of our Young Professionals should you require more information. They are always open for a chat or an informal introductory meeting.
Koen van Wissen is a Junior Quantitative Consultant who follows the Young Professionals Program offered by VB Advisory. He gained his university degree in Econometrics and Operations Research at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam in combination with a semester abroad at the Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. During his studies he acquired an affinity for analytical problem solving and programming. Koen holds a wide variety of interests and particularly enjoys ventures involving teamwork. Self-improvement is important to him and he is always looking to add new skills to his own portfolio. He often spends his free time in the gym or playing football and he relishes staying up to date with the latest developments in eSports.
Rachel Bonapart is one of our Junior Quantitative Consultant who follows the Young Professional program within VB Advisory. She has obtained her degree in Econometrics and Operations Research at the Vrije University in Amsterdam and studied a semester abroad at the University of Sao Paulo. During her study she developed analytic and programming skills. Which she applied to solve complex problems at a smaller bank and larger retail bank within the Netherlands. Rachel enjoys to create solidarity within groups, like she did during her study through committee’s e.g organizing a study trip. Rachel likes to meet new challenges since this is an opportunity to improve herself and learn new things. During her spare time, she likes to be with family, going to the gym and dancing.
Bram Ebben is a Junior Quantitative Consultant who follows the Young Professionals Program offered by VB Advisory. He gained his Bachelor’s degree in Econometrics and Operational Research and Master’s degree in Financial Econometrics at the University of Amsterdam. Bram has an enthusiasm for financial modelling and (sports) data analytics. He is competitively and team oriented which results in him trying to motivate others and achieve the best possible result. He enjoys playing and watching football, particularly Ajax games are never missed. In his free time he enjoys playing (board) games with family and friends.
Research projects
After last year’s success, where we were involved in the supervision of a group of master students who went on to attain exceptional grades, our team would once again like to provide new talents with the chance to explore new quantitative topics and to combine their personal interests and their knowledge of data sciences. Originating from a background in financial consultancy services, this small team is fast-growing, talented, highly motivated and focusses currently on new sports analytics and sustainable energy analytics opportunities.
Applications are open for the following topics:
- Cryptocurrency Trading Strategies (closed)
- Forecasting E-sports Matches (closed)
- Investigating Global Warming through the Estimation of Common Trends (closed)
- Hedging longevity risk with index-linked instruments (closed)
- Hedging Renewable Energy (closed)
- Impact of Social Media on the Crypto Market (closed)
- Forecasting Soccer Matches (closed)
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
With the recent re-emergence of the cryptocurrency market, major financial institutions have joined the playing field and are looking for opportunities. Banks, hedge funds and even governments are testing the waters, some with a bigger investment than others. Grayscale, the world’s largest cryptocurrency asset manager, now has over 20$ billion worth of cryptocurrencies under management. However, cryptocurrencies are considered assets almost completely separated from the mainstream financial instruments. Previous research done by VB Risk Advisory has shown how cryptocurrencies have no dynamic correlations with mainstream instruments and are unsuitable as hedging instruments (K. van Wissen, D. Venekamp). Now, VB Risk Advisory is looking to develop a trading strategy for cryptocurrencies. Common trading strategies need to be re-evaluated for their use when trading cryptocurrencies. Currently the most commonly used trading strategy for cryptocurrencies is “Buy and Hold”, is it possible to outperform this by active trading? The unprecedented volatility definitely provides plenty of opportunities.
The goal of this internship is to create and implement an active trading strategy that is able to outperform the “Buy and Hold” strategy over time. Previous research by Koker et al. (2020) used machine learning methods whereas research by Rohrbach et al. (2017) used momentum and trend following trading strategies. The aim is to build and improve upon these methods by using new/extended models and/or usage of different signals.
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
These days, headline E-sports tournaments fill major stadiums and draw media audiences like any offline sporting event. While multiple games are entering the E-sports genre, the game with the largest audience currently is League of Legends. The American League of Legends (LCS) competition is up there with the likes of the MLS, NBA, and the NFL as the third most popular major sport league among 18-34 year olds in the US. Moreover, the 2019 League of Legends World Championship brought in more than 100 million viewers peaking at 44 million concurrent viewers.
However, the world of esports isn’t without controversy. With the rise in popularity come the same issues that have arrived in legacy sports, such as cheating, player exploitation, and even performance-enhancing drugs. In addition, E-sports have also opened the door to a new blend of disruption, with cyber-attacks becoming more frequent along with overloaded servers and dropped connections. Furthermore, E-sports attracts regulatory scrutiny such as Visa issues and the World Health Organization recently adding a gaming disorder to the International Classification of Diseases.
Despite these growing pains, the popularity of E-sports shows no sign of slowing down. As shown by the Global Games Market Report market research, which forecasts 2.3 billion players across the globe will spend a whopping $137.9 billion on games by the end of the year, with an increase of 13% from previous year. Following the massive influx of money, betting offices are turning more and more towards E-sport as well. According to research done by NJGames.org, the total amount bet on esports competitions is expected to hit $12.9 billion by 2020. Accompanying this is the increasing demand for proper betting quotes. This is where we come into play.
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
One of the major research questions of the past decade is whether climatological data -such as temperatures- show evidence of global warming through the presence of upward trends. Several econometric tools have been applied to the analysis of temperature data. Recent econometric and statistical research on trends focuses on nonparametric trend estimation that avoids one to have to make assumptions on the form of the trend.
Typically such methods are applied to individual time series though, which ignores the “global” in “global” warming. One can construct a time series consisting of average global data, but by this aggregation a lot of information can be lost. It is better to consider a panel of time series for different locations, and use this panel to extract the common trend from the data. Atak et al. (2011), Chen et al. (2012) and Robinson (2012) have proposed a method to estimate a common deterministic trend nonparametrically from panel data. For such analysis to make sense, the trend observed in the different series should actually be the same. Zhang et al. (2012) address this issue by proposing a method for testing whether the trend is common to all series considered.
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
Lower funding ratios driven by lower interest rates and increasing life expectancy have forced pension funds and life insurance companies globally to re-think the asset liability management of their pension portfolios and to follow a de-risking strategy. The hedging of longevity risk through longevity swaps is a key part of that strategy. In addition to traditional longevity swaps there are also instruments which are linked to a mortality index (such as the mortality coefficients for the Dutch population published by the Central Bureau of Statistics). These have the potential for standardization and create a deep and liquid market for longevity risk. A drawback of these instruments is the basis risk between the mortality index and the actual portfolio to be hedged.
The aim of this research project is to extend the work of Cairns and El Boukfaoui (2017) and internal research on basis risk to include commutation risk, replicating portfolio risk and model risk. We have started by implementing a stochastic 2-population mortality model which allows evaluation of the basis risk of an index hedge. We then hope to extend existing models for basis risk to include new risk types. Eventually, after understanding all types of basis risk, changes could be made to the index hedge.
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
Risk management will become the most important asset in financial institutions, as risk management is respected all over the world for their critical role in the support and implementation of innovative business projects. The market for renewable energy is growing as more people make use of renewable energy. The majority of renewable energy is generated by wind mills. Hedging solutions for wind volume risk can be executed in either derivative or (re)insurance formats; the underlying mechanism is similar. Derivatives (options, swaps, futures) derive value from underlying assets. With wind derivatives, the “underlying” used in pricing and structuring, is often an index which models a wind farm’s output based on turbine power curves and historical wind speed data. However, measuring the actual fair value of the derivate is challenging as the underlying asset is not traded. As a result, the impact of wind values on derivatives values is often misunderstood. This research aims to measure the fair value of for wind derivatives via weather station data and to develop an innovative pricing model for pricing these type of derivatives.
Unfortunately, this internship position is already fulfilled and therefore applications on this position will not be considered. Still interested in an internship position? Please look at our other opportunities.
The main aim of this internship is to establish robust forecast soccer results. By exploring risk-rewarding team strategies and using discrete choice regression models, e.g. an ordered probit model, a variety of quantitative and data-driven models could be explored to model results directly rather than indirectly through scores. Earlier applied statistics literature investigated primarily models related to goal scoring (Crowder et al., 2002), where the aim of this research will be narrowed to direct results.
Has this piqued your interest and are ready for a challenging and promising graduation period? Send us your Curriculum Vitae! In case of any queries with regard to this graduate research project do not hesitate to contact us or send your personal contact information to info@vbadvisory.nl.
