The shortest path to a difficult destination
A geodesic is the shortest route between two points on a curved surface. It is rarely the straight line you would have guessed. That is the whole business.
I advise a small number of people each year on three outcomes: breaking into quantitative finance, admission to an elite MBA programme, and entry to Oxbridge in a STEM subject. Different problems, one requirement — an adviser who has actually done the thing, at the level in question, rather than read about it.
The record
- MSc Computer Science — University of Oxford
- MSc Financial Engineering — Princeton University
- MBA — London Business School
- Quantitative developer and quantitative researcher — career in quantitative finance
- GMAT 99th percentile — achieved twice
- GRE 99th percentile — verbal and quantitative
- 15+ years teaching
- Research — algebraic topology, differential geometry, stochastic analysis
Most advisers hold one of these. Admissions consultancies employ former committee members who cannot do the mathematics. Quant mentors have the mathematics but no admissions credibility. Tutoring agencies have neither. The combination is the product — see the full background or the three kinds of work.
Three kinds of work
Sold as programmes with a defined scope, not by the hour. Fees are published because I would rather you self-select than spend a call discovering we are in different markets.
Quantitative finance careers
Research, trading and development roles. MFE and MFin admissions.
From £5,500 Quant interview preparation → BMBA admissions
M7, London Business School, INSEAD — for the quantitative applicant.
From £7,500 MBA admissions consulting → COxbridge & US STEM
MAT, STEP, TMUA and interviews, taught personally. Family retainers.
From £18,000 MAT, STEP & Oxbridge interviews →Method
- Enquiry A written form rather than a calendar link. It establishes what you are aiming at, by when, and whether I am the right person — which sometimes I am not.
- Conversation Thirty minutes, no charge, no script. If I do not think I can move the outcome I will say so and point you elsewhere.
- Diagnosis Before any teaching, a written assessment of where you are against where you need to be. The gap is frequently not where people assume.
- The work Sessions with me. Not an associate, not a junior. Written feedback between sessions, everything recorded.
- Outcome Through to the offer, the admission, or the decision not to proceed. I remain reachable afterwards.
Where clients are
Everything is remote and always has been. Working on Central European Time: mornings suit Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo; afternoons the Gulf and Europe; evenings the United States.
Recent writing
Longer and more technical than is fashionable, because the useful part is usually in the detail.
What a quant interview is actually testing
The mathematics is the entry ticket, not the exam. What happens in the ninety seconds after you realise you have no answer.
Read the quant interview piece → CReading a MAT question the way an examiner does
Why students with perfect school marks score in the forties on MAT mocks, and why their training is the thing working against them.
Read the Oxford admissions piece →Enquire
There is deliberately no booking calendar. Tell me what you are trying to do and I will reply personally within two working days — with a time to speak if I think I can help, and an honest no if I cannot.