The global head of machine learning left NatWest Markets for Citadel

There's been a big exit from NatWest Markets in London: William McGhee has left the building.

McGhee was Natwest's global head of machine learning and etrading quantitative analytics. Sources said he's off to Citadel.

Natwest and Citadel declined to comment.  McGhee is understood to be joining Citadel’s global fixed income business as a senior quantitative researcher.

McGhee spent a decade at RBS, which became NatWest Markets in 2018. He joined the bank in 2009 as global head of hybrid and FX options quantitative analytics and was global head of quant analytics before being promoted to the head of machine learning role in November 2018. 

Citadel is building a machine learning platform under Li Deng, whom it hired from Microsoft in 2017. Deng, who is based in Seattle, has been hiring an AI Research team with a view to using machine learning, deep learning and reinforcement learning technologies to develop trading strategies and enable portfolio optimization. 

It's thought that McGhee will be based in London.

McGhee graduated from Cambridge with a degree in theoretical physics and has a PhD in mathematics from the UK's Durham University. He began his career at J.P. Morgan and spent five years each at Deutsche Bank and Citi before joining RBS.

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