Ronnie Wexler, Global Head of Equities Distribution, Barclays

Ronnie Wexler (0:00)

And with us, the client is at the center of everything.

And so when we think about businesses, we don't think about sales, trading, structuring as it relates to the client. We think about a team of people working closely together to service the client at the highest level. And so our expectation of the way people behave is that they put the client first and that they're all bought into the client and bought into the firm relationship and understand the big picture.

Dean Curnutt (0:27)

Hello, this is Dean Curnutt and welcome to The Alpha Exchange, where we explore topics in financial markets associated with managing risk, generating return, and the deployment of capital in the alternative investment industry.

It was a pleasure to host a discussion with Ronnie Wexler, Global Head of Equities Distribution at Barclays, and solicit his insights on change in markets and client relationships and in the growing role of technology across the financial ecosystem. We began with Ronnie's early days at Goldman Sachs during the final stages of the tech bubble and the sharp market reversal that followed. He reflects on how periods of market stress from the post.com bear market to the GFC have shaped his perspective on risk and the importance of being adaptable in markets that are constantly moving. The conversation then turns to the changing structure of institutional investing. Ronnie discusses the growth of hedge funds in pursuit of industrial scale alpha generation, highlighting how client needs have become increasingly cross asset and solutions oriented. He explains how a sell side equities business today functions as an integrated ecosystem that spans prime brokerage, derivatives, electronic trading and financing. A major theme throughout the discussion is the accelerating pace of technological change. Ronnie describes recent experiences using AI development tools and outlines how firms are integrating them into workflows ranging from onboarding and automation to research, distribution and client analytics. We also explore the rise of bespoke and OTC solutions, including QIS, custom baskets and exotic option structures. Here Ronnie emphasizes that these products reflect broader changes in market structure, positioning and risk transfer across institutional portfolios. The conversation concludes with thoughts on recruiting, apprenticeship culture, and the need for firms to balance human judgment with increasing technological infrastructure. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Alpha Exchange, My Conversation with Ronnie Wexler.

My guest today on the Alpha Exchange is Ronnie Wexler. He is the Global Head of Equity's Distribution at Barclays, and someone I've had the pleasure of knowing for more than two decades now. Ronnie, it's great to welcome you to the podcast.

Ronnie Wexler (2:53)

It's amazing to be here. You've been an amazing mentor to me.

I'm very proud of your journey and being your friend, and so it's only fitting that the first ever non-Barclays external podcast that I do is the Alpha Exchange with you.

Dean Curnutt (3:07)

Well, I tell people, I knew you when. We met back in 2006 through our dear friend, John Calico, so I credit him for the introduction.

It's great to be hosting this. Two decades, gosh, how much has changed in markets? And that's really gonna be the basis of our conversation today, which is change, whether you like it or not, change is coming your way.

Ronnie Wexler (3:31)

Faster than you can imagine.

Dean Curnutt (3:33)

Through the lens of change, we're gonna get your insights on clients, on technology and innovation, on human capital development, recruiting, and then how you think about alignment across sales, trading, research, quant.

So we'll have plenty to talk about. And as we think about change, there's nothing coming at us quicker than AI. And so you're just back from a management offsite, I wanna say it was in Europe, maybe London?

Ronnie Wexler (4:04)

Yeah, it was outside of London in the UK countryside, which was a great setting to really dig in to AI because like the juxtaposition of the new technology in the old world just made it feel even more surreal. But we got to use Claude code and Vibe code as a management team for the first time. And I have to tell you, I can't stop thinking about it. This is mind-bending stuff. It was a true singularity moment for me. And I just can't believe what this technology can do. I asked this technology to...

I'm not going to be perfectly specific on some of the things we used it for, but I asked this technology to do a big project for me. Big tech project that was something meaningful or could be meaningful for our business. And all I did was type in the prompt, like plain English, please build this for me, use these parameters. It only had access to publicly available data.