This edition of Office Hours, a series highlighting the company’s senior leaders, showcases Chris Busby, Global Head of Investor Relations.
Chris joined Two Sigma in 2014 and today leads the firm’s fundraising and client relationship management activities while also serving as head of the London office. His career path was unconventional, beginning with a stint as a professional ice hockey player before he moved into finance. Prior to joining Two Sigma, he advised institutional investors at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and worked at a venture capital firm specializing in late-stage tech financing.
Read on to learn about Chris’s unique career path, his perspective on the firm’s entrepreneurial culture, and which Premier League football club has earned his allegiance.
What led you to your current role, and what are your main responsibilities at Two Sigma?
Since joining the firm in 2014, I’ve held a range of roles and responsibilities, some formal, some informal. That’s one of the amazing things about Two Sigma: it’s a company that supports and encourages an entrepreneurial mindset.
I spent my first five years in the New York office, where I was primarily responsible for helping to grow our presence with institutional investors in North America. With the company pursuing global expansion, I then moved to London to focus on exploring new, complementary businesses and capabilities in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.
Today, in addition to my role as Global Head of Investor Relations, I oversee our London office. For those who might not be aware, more than a hundred people work there, including engineers focusing on a range of areas, plus researchers with responsibilities across equities, macro, features, portfolio construction, risk and financing, and more.
What differentiates Two Sigma’s investment philosophy and research culture from other investment managers?
Since Two Sigma’s founding, our DNA has been rooted in technology, AI, and rigorous statistical analysis. We apply the scientific method to everything we do—to a greater degree than others do, I believe.
Today’s work is tomorrow’s alpha.
It’s all about experimentation, hypothesis testing, and, ultimately, continuous improvement. This philosophy is designed to lead to small, steady improvements at every step of the research and investment process.
Today’s work is tomorrow’s alpha. We believe that we have to keep reinventing ourselves a little bit every day to keep up with a world and a market that changes incredibly quickly.
What role do technology and data play in Two Sigma’s investment management process? Has that role changed over time?
Data is and always has been the lifeblood of Two Sigma. It fuels all of the research and innovation that we hope will lead to new insights and better ways to make predictive models.
But data alone doesn’t ensure an advantage. Given the current pace of technological advancement, massive amounts of data would quickly become useless if we didn’t also have an employee base with deep expertise, both in engineering and quantitative research.
…when large language models (LLMs) began appearing in the public domain, we were well positioned to find impactful ways to apply them quickly to our research efforts.
The rapid acceleration of generative AI is a perfect example of what happens when you spend years nurturing such expertise. We had already been using iterations of technologies like language models for many years (along with many other natural language processing techniques), and we saw first-hand how it had evolved. So, when large language models (LLMs) began appearing in the public domain, we were well positioned to find impactful ways to apply them quickly to our research efforts.
What trends do you see shaping the future of quantitative investing, and how is Two Sigma positioning itself to capitalize on these opportunities?
There is no doubt that more investors are using quantitative methods to help generate returns in liquid markets than ever before. Meanwhile, technology is always improving, and the volume of data and velocity at which it’s being created continues to increase exponentially, which means there will continue to be opportunities for innovation.
Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay at the forefront of applying technology and data science to investment management. All the fancy jargon you hear about in the press has been our focus since Two Sigma’s beginnings, almost 25 years ago.
Our history of focusing on such innovations has allowed us to scale these efforts massively over time, especially as cloud-based computing power has exploded. And I’m confident that our deep bench of domain experts, along with the company’s ability to continue attracting great talent, will help us stay at the cutting edge for years to come.
What’s been capturing your interest outside of work lately?
Football! And maybe not the kind you’d think, depending on where you’re from. I’ve become a huge European football fan (soccer, for our American readers) since moving to London in 2019. I support Tottenham Hotspur, which results in a lot of emotional volatility at times…
Additionally, I’m on a bit of a memoir binge lately—though more often, I love to read non-fiction on topics including business, pop culture, and history.
I also find that my mental wellness is highly correlated to my physical wellness, so finding time to work out is really important to me. I’ve stepped up my game recently with the discovery of a VersaClimbing class at my gym. Try it at your own peril!
Finally, since I travel a lot for work, I really cherish spending time with my wife and dog, and we love hosting friends and family for dinner or drinks whenever we can.
