Top trader turned entrepreneur secures MD role at boutique investment bank

Boutique investment bank Oppenheimer & Co has just hired Christopher Knight as a managing director in its London office, focusing on emerging market fixed income sales.

Knight joined from BTG Pactual earlier this month, where he held a similar sales role focused on the Latin American credit sector. If this seems like a standard move, it’s worth noting that this is Knight’s third career.

Knight started out in a trading role in the 1980s, as a grain trader at Louis Dreyfus. By 1993, he was a managing director in the emerging markets fixed income trading at Bear Stearns in both New York and London, before moving to UBS in the City in a similar role.

This was the pre-crisis era when senior trading jobs paid seven figures and by 2005, he quit banking for the ‘good life’ - renting out residential property he owned and managing a horse livery yard. Knight has a degree in Agriculture from Wye College, London University and started his career as a graduate trainee at Heading Farm Enterprises.

But he moved back into finance by 2007, as head of sales and strategy at Delphi Derivatives – small trading firm in London.

But the return to a mainstream finance career was in 2014, when he joined BTG Pactual. Knight is a reassuring example of being able to take a significant time out of working for a major investment bank and make a return to a senior role.