Birkbeck Annual Finance Conference 2025
When:
—
Venue:
373 Euston Road
The Accounting and Finance subject group of Birkbeck, University of London invites current and future students to the Annual Finance Conference 2025. The event brings together current and prospective students, faculty and alumni for an evening discussing the latest developments in Risk Management and Data Science in Finance. In addition, the event will provide an overview on the different postgraduate Finance programmes offered at Birkbeck.
Programme:
17:45 - 18:00: Registration
18:00 - 18:20: Welcome - Studying Finance at Birkbeck College
18:20 - 18:50: Wilbur Zhu, PhD (Lumen Research) - From MSc Finance to Data Science: career paths and opportunities
18:50 - 19:20: Simone Guidi (J O Hambro Capital Management) - A brief journey as a risk management practitioner
19:20 - 19:40: Q&A Session
19:40 - 20:30: Reception
Speakers:
Wilbur Zhu, PhD – Associate Director in Prediction Services, Lumen Research
Wilbur holds a BSc in Pure Mathematics from Warwick and an MSc in Finance from Birkbeck (2015), where he built a strong foundation in financial theory. He completed a PhD in Financial Computing at UCL, focusing on healthcare prediction models. After earning his PhD in 2021, he joined Unilever as a data scientist, analysing global workforce data. He later became a Senior Consultant at Sia Partners, delivering data science projects for energy clients and leading graduate recruitment. In May 2025, Wilbur will join Lumen Research as Associate Director in Prediction Services, developing models to forecast advertising attention.
Simone Guidi – Head of Investment Risk and Performance Analytics, J O Hambro Capital Management
Simone holds a first-class degree in Economics and an MSc in Finance with Distinction from Birkbeck (2006). He began in Quant Risk at APT, focusing on portfolio construction and PCA-based risk analytics. In 2008, he joined F&C Asset Management, covering multi-asset strategies. He later built and led the Investment Risk function at Seven Investment Management, becoming a Partner in 2013. In 2019, he joined MSCI as Executive Director, heading the EMEA Risk Analytics Consultant Team. Since 2022, Simone has led Investment Risk and Performance Analytics at J O Hambro, focusing on portfolio construction, factor risk, and stress testing.
Click here for a full list of MSc Programmes in Finance at Birkbeck.
Contact name: David Schroeder
Speakers- Simone Guidi
- Wilbur Zhu, PhD
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