On June 24 2016, the day after Britain’s Brexit referendum, hedge fund manager Richard Robb went jogging around Hyde Park in London. “Normally I find jogging excruciating and count down the minutes until the torture will end,” he admits in a new book, Willful: How We Choose What We Do. But that day, “I didn’t even notice. My pain was crowded out by the looming horror.”
Robb’s fund faced a potential crisis because its trades were vulnerable to the shock waves sent through financial markets by the surprise result. He feared a scenario where “the stain on our reputation would be long-lasting”, he recalls.
In the event, his terror was not justified. He averted disaster by drawing on skills honed while working for the Japanese Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (DKB) during the 1997-98 Asian crisis and, later, steering his fund through the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse. He looks back on the incident today with relief at the way his team worked to overcome the predicament.