Alexandra Ford has played a vital role in bringing electronic trading to two of the last financial market holdouts: leveraged loans and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). Working closely with Octaura Securities Trading, whose platform has steadily gained market share, she helped design and launch its request-for-quote protocol for loans and last year for CLOs, providing insight into the needs of syndicated loan market participants and trading desks.
"It's one of the most significant innovations in the leveraged loan market that we've seen," Bank of America's Ford said.
Ford discovered her interest in capital markets and their relation to macro global events during a summer internship at Bank of America. Graduating from Georgetown University, she joined the bank's high-yield desk in 2015, shifted to leveraged loans the next year, and has steadily risen to senior trader and now managing director of leveraged loan trading.
Ford said she pursues steady advancement in her career, rather than by leaps and bounds, an approach she has recently applied to running, a new activity. Her favorite hobby, however, is reading, especially historical fiction but a wide variety of texts throughout the year. It enhances her perspective, she said, and provides her with knowledge to converse better with colleagues and clients on professional and more personal levels.
That perspective and interest in learning has also bolstered her ability to lead important initiatives. She was the trading desk's point person to develop the banks' CLO optimization tool that enables investor clients to optimize their leveraged loan portfolios in the context of their investment goals. It has also been a boon for BorfA, which, according Lawrence Wolfson, head of Americas flow credit trading at the bank, has executed over $1 billion of CLO optimization trades since the program's inception, with year-to-date trading activity up 70% over last year.
Ford was instrumental in teaching the bank's quantitative strategies team developing the tool that clients wanted, and enforcing deadlines and priorities.
"Alex is the quarterback in terms of optimization and solutions initiatives, working with the customer, the quant department, and the trading desk," Wolfson said, who has observed Ford's progress since her earliest days at the bank.
Ford has also taken a leadership role in the bank's university recruiting and credit-internship and employee-network programs.
Wolfson noted that a top trader's success is measured by revenue and market share, and also by how he or she operates on the trading floor, works alongside other people and businesses, and contributes to the enterprise.
"There's nothing Alex is not strong at, whether it's dealing with customers, understanding credit, or working internally on nonmarket-related initiatives," Wolfson said.
Ford attributes her leadership strengths to communication and empowering her teammates and collaborating to achieve the best outcomes. It's critical, she said, to create an environment in which participants feel comfortable contributing and taking ownership of their efforts.
