Paul Kitching is the principal of the business, supported closely by Alan Burr. Both have spent many years in the financial services business, complimenting each other’s core strengths in cash and derivatives instruments and back and middle-office operations.
Paul has been a financial trainer for more than twenty-five years, specialising in treasury, capital markets and derivative instruments, drawing from experience gained in a professional career at blue chip institutions spanning eighteen years.
Paul held senior positions in academia before moving to the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (now, ICE Futures Europe), firstly in their highly regarded education department, and then as Head of Interest Rate Product Development, and latterly, as Head of Strategic Business Planning for the Exchange. During this time, Paul was appointed visiting lecturer at the Cass Business School, City University, delivering the Finance unit on the Executive MBA programme and was also appointed Chief Examiner of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (formerly, the Securities Institute) Financial Derivatives Level 6 Diploma Paper, before joining the Supervisory Panel of the same qualification, responsible for moderating the examination paper and ensuring consistency across papers and candidate scripts.
On leaving the Exchange, Paul set-up Capital Markets & Derivatives Training, designing and delivering a range of in-house programmes for global financial institutions and, using his extensive knowledge of the qualification, developed an open enrolment, ten-day intensive programme guiding delegates to success in the CISI Level 6 Financial Derivatives qualification. In addition, he has helped candidates to success in foundation Level 3 & 4 CISI qualifications in Global Securities and Derivatives instruments. More recently, Paul has conducted several training courses in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia preparing candidates for the ACI Operations Certificate & ACI Dealers Certificate qualifications.
During this time, Paul was commissioned by the internationally renowned Euromoney Training to be Course Director on a number of open enrolment programmes, including Treasury Management, the Capital Markets, Bonds & Fixed income, and Derivative Instruments; in addition, he has been a regular faculty member of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) Academy and ICE Futures Europe training group.
More recently, Paul has worked closely with a number of exchanges and clearing entities in emerging markets assisting them with the introduction of derivatives products and the infrastructure required, including Boursa Kuwait, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (where he sat on the Advisory Panel), the Central Securities Clearing System, Nigeria and the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Paul has an MBA in Quantitative Finance from Imperial College, London and is a Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasures and associate of the Institute of Taxation.
Alan Burr has over 40 years’ international experience of financial markets. He specialises in the securities and derivatives industry, with particular expertise in trading, operations, regulation, risk management, corporate governance, clearing and settlement. He has substantial executive experience with clearing houses, exchanges, international markets and in the management of IT. He is recognised as a leading authority in the field of investment operations and risk management.
Alan is an expert on derivatives, commodities, foreign exchange, fixed income and equities and has contributed to and led many projects to introduce new exchanges. Alan regularly provides education on all aspects of investment operations for examination and general educational purposes.
He worked for ICCH (now LCH.Clearnet) as Chief Executive in Hong Kong and Executive Director in London and then for MEFF, the Spanish Financial Futures Exchange.
Alan is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI). He is a CISI accredited trainer and examiner and is currently sits on the CISI examination panels for the Level 3 Derivatives paper, the Level 3 Operational Risk paper, the Level 3 Technology in Investment paper, and the Level 4 Managing Operational Risk in Financial Institutions paper, as well as being a regular contributor to the CISI’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme.