Who we are

This chapter introduces the characters in this book: Tina, Albert, and Mario. And also to Jordi, the CEO of Empodering.

Tina

     Tina is a former professional football player who once played in the first division. After retiring, she founded a home renovation business.

She still remembers how her grandfather lost his savings in the 2008 preferred stock scandal in Spain. Therefore, she has doubts about what is the best way to invest her wealth. Her assets are now managed by Mario, her private banker.

She often wonders if Mario charges her too much, and if he puts enough effort into it. But for one reason or another, she still uses his services.

Tina has a son, and she wants an investment account for him, too.

She likes cars and bicycles. She has an iPhone because it makes her life easier.

She doesn’t know much about investing, but she’s direct and asks the right questions every time.

Albert

     Albert is a professor of physics and mathematics at the university. He likes to understand how things work. Therefore, he is attracted to both the evolution of the Universe and the financial markets.

Her friend Tina sometimes asks him questions about managing her wealth.

He was one of Empodering’s first clients, because he likes the strategy they recommended to him: it fits his way of thinking.

Albert is a passionate person when he speaks. He likes to teach, especially to people asking him good questions.

He is a Linux enthusiast.

Mario

     Mario is Tina’s private banker. He dresses elegantly, his hair is slicked back, and he speaks in a deep, commanding voice.

He doesn’t know much about markets, but he hides this weakness well.

What he is an expert at is dealing with his clients: he knows what to say, and how to say it, at all times.

Jordi

Jordi Molins, founder and CEO of Empodering EAF, S.L., is a physicist by the University of Barcelona, with a postgraduate degree in high energy physics and cosmology, and another postgraduate degree in quantitative finance for financial markets, at the Faculty of Mathematics of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Jordi also has an Executive MBA from INSEAD (Paris).

Jordi worked as a proprietary trader (a Hedge Fund within a bank) both at the current Commerzbank (second largest German bank) and at Banco Santander, using quantitative and artificial intelligence methods, since 2003.

 

A Hedge Fund is an alternative investment vehicle that generally uses sophisticated investment methods. Hedge Funds are generally only available to large institutional investors.

 

In 2009 he joined Perry Capital, one of the 50 largest Hedge Funds at the time, and founded by Richard Perry, in the London office, when Perry Capital realized there was going to be a sovereign debt crisis in Europe (as it was, with the outbreak of the Greek crisis in April 2010).

 

Richard Perry was one of the members of the famous Goldman Sachs risk arbitrage group, led by Bob Rubin, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, and which gave rise to some of the most famous Hedge Funds of recent decades, such as Och-Ziff Capital, Farallon Capital, Taconic Capital and Perry Capital.

 

At Perry, he spearheaded the hedging strategy, which led the fund to invest up to $2 billion in European sovereign debt hedges, resulting in high value-added protection.

Of himself, he values the consistency when forecasting the major trends in global capital markets: from the identification of the real estate and public debt bubble in southern Europe in 2009, to the Great Moderation of the 2010s, as well as the risk management of the crisis at the end of 2018 (trade war between the US and China), the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 and the inflation crisis of the first months of 2022.

Jordi participated as a speaker in the debate What does the Banking Union contribute to the European economy?, organized by the Office of the European Parliament in Barcelona and by the Association of Economists of Catalonia, together with Mr. Ramon Tremosa and Mr. Jordi Gual.

Planeta Deusto published the book Confidencias de un especulador.

He is part of WAIS, an association of historians that emerged from Stanford University, possibly the first e-journal in the world, founded in 1965 by Ronald Hilton, professor at Stanford and fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Jordi worked with Bernhard Pfaff, one of the world’s experts in the application of statistical programming languages in capital markets, at the current Commerzbank in 2003, which allowed him to use advanced statistical methods, including artificial intelligence, since then, long before its use became popular.

In 2006, he achieved the CAIA certification for alternative investments, in one of the first worldwide promotions of this certification.

Jordi does not charge, nor has he ever charged, incentives to market investment funds. His income as a financial professional has always been due to value-added advice to his clients.

Jordi has his liquid savings in the Empodering Multi-Strategy investment fund.