Karl Massey

Senior Board Advisor, Serendipity Capital

Karl Massey holds two degrees, a first class bachelor’s (Hons) in physics from Imperial College, London as well as a master’s molecular biophysics from University College, University of Oxford.

Karl is a senior advisor for Serendipity Capital, Singapore, which is a permanent capital vehicle investing in financial services, technology and climate-focused businesses.

He is a member of the advisory board of Dynamhex, a US-based company providing AI-based decarbonization as a Service, DaaS. Karl is also a member of the development board of the physics department at the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Institute of Physics and the investment committee of the Athenaeum Club, London.

Since May 2020, Karl has been advising and supporting a number of businesses and projects in the carbon value chain and early-stage spin-off technologies from Oxford University physics department, including quantum computing and organic photovoltaics. He contributes to op eds, podcast and macro research commentary for the MacroHive website.

Karl’s professional qualifications are FSA General Registered Representative and IMC (Investment Management Certificate).

He began his career in finance at JP Morgan. For the next eight years, he specialized in trading fixed income products (bonds, futures, swaps and options) in both developed and emerging markets. In 1996, Karl moved to Madrid for four years as a senior member of the management team overseeing Banco Santander Global Asset-Liability and ran their Latam bank treasury function.

He returned to London in 2001 as global head of FX for HSBC Asset Management, where he designed and implemented their inaugural currency overlay program for fixed income and balanced portfolios, whilst participating as a member of the HSBCAM Global Asset Allocation Committee.

Karl has held senior portfolio manager roles within the strategic proprietary risk environment beginning in 2003, initially in Brevan Howard Asset Management, UBS O’Connor and, most recently, in Deutsche Bank’s Cross Asset Trading group, in which he concentrated on global macro risks in fixed income and currencies.

In March 2012, Karl joined Barclays Bank Treasury in London as head of European liquidity management. He was a member of the small team managing the short-term investment portfolio (£50B) and the bank’s liquidity metrics, including the group liquidity pool (£120B) and external liquidity measures specified by Basel III and the FSA. He was responsible for maintaining frequent contact with UK and US regulators. He was a key driver of the management team assembled to resolve the entirety of Barclays Libor new rate setting obligations following the CFTC ruling in July 2012.

From September 2013 until February 2015, Karl was a strategic advisor and portfolio manager within the Volatility Arbitrage Group of Bluecrest Capital in London.

From May 2015, he carried out a variety of advisory and teaching roles for a number of global institutions in both London and New York.

In January 2017, Karl joined LPP, the Local Pensions Partnership, as investment director where he both initiated and managed the fixed income asset class containing high quality, liquid, fixed income assets. The fund was initially seeded with £300M in March 2018 and, following successful implementation and track record as of Q1 2020, had AUM of £750M.

Until February 2020, Karl was an investment director and head of markets at LPP, sitting on the investment committee. Additionally, he was a key contributor of the investment strategy team helping to deliver investment strategy across all of LPP’s asset classes.

In May 2018, Karl was invited by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to deliver a series of lectures on “Complexity and Covenant in the Financial Markets” to institutions drawn widely from across the Federal Reserve Bank’s 10th District.

In August 2018, Karl was invited to be a participant at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium which considers new themes and developments within Central Bank policymaking.

He has been a member of the Athenaeum Club, London since 2011 and also Vincent’s Club , Oxford University since 1986. Karl is a member of the Henry Moseley Circle at Oxford University, whose aim is to secure the future objectives of the department of physics.

Karl is proud to be a Trustee of Bag Books, a charity which provides multisensory books and storytelling for people with severe or profound multiple learning disabilities.