We have long believed that the best way to build a team of brilliant financial modellers is to recruit incredibly bright and analytical people and then train and treat them incredibly well. We think this approach has paid great dividends in terms of the depth of skill and experience in our modelling team. Of course we would say that, but you don’t just have to take our word for it, the facts speak for themselves.
- World Champion Financial Modellers
Financial modelling as a sport entered the world in 2012, and an Operis modeller (Hilary Smart) won the world championship (then called ModelOff) in 2013, beating out thousands of other competitors to do so. Michael Jarman, now our Head of Model Development, won the title in 2018. At the time of writing Michael is leading the field in this year’s competition (now known as the Financial Modelling World Cup (FMWC)).
Producing one home-grown financial modelling champion might be put down to luck, but the fact that we have trained (and still retain in our team) two world champions speaks to the quality of Operis’s selection and training processes.
- Championship Winning Financial Modelling Team
Financial modelling isn’t just an individual sport, the competition as it is now also ranks companies. The Operis team took home that title last year, beating out many other boutique financial modelling firms as well as much larger modelling teams from all the Big Four accountancy companies.
There is more, of course, to being an excellent financial modeller than just being able to win competitions. However, to succeed in the FMWC modellers need to be able to digest and synthesise new information quickly, create innovative solutions, and model quickly and accurately under time pressure. Aren’t those all skills you want your financial modellers to have?
- Experience and Stability
Operis is a Great Place to Work (we do have the pieces of paper to prove it) and we look after our people well. This means that in an industry with fast turnover we have an astonishing depth of experience. 15% of our 60-strong modelling team have been with us for over a decade*, and between them they have worked on a huge number of the more than 1,640 projects across the energy/renewables and infrastructure space which Operis has worked on in its 30-year history.
The fact that this experience and knowledge has stayed within the team serves us extremely well when training new staff, and when applying techniques and understanding from previous work to new assignments. For us, it’s not just that the Operis-the-institution has in theory seen it all before, it’s that Operis-the-people remember. And, as our work is delivered from our in-person offices in London and Toronto, that knowledge is easily shared within the team for the benefit of our clients.
For many people, financial modelling is viewed as a skill that is a stepping stone to other things. For us at Operis, financial modelling is a craft that we never get tired of honing. We love the problem solving, the commercial challenges and the impact we have on real world infrastructure. Be it student accommodation in the UK, a solar farm in the Baltics or a Waste to Energy plant in Abu Dhabi, we are proud of our contribution. Good financial decisions need great financial modellers – and if you could use our services on your transaction then please do reach out.
*Chris Aldred, Michael Jarman, Jun Tao, Mark Southall, David Rosel, Cristina Filionescu, David Rushton, Darryl Ooi and Hilary Smart have all been with Operis for more than 10 years.
