Let's meet our Instructors

At Knightsbridge Trading Academy our tutors have a combined experience of over 75 working years in the financial sector. Their mission is to improve the general understanding of trading, investing and the financial markets as a whole.

Trevor Neil, MSTA MCSI

Trevor Neil MSTA MCSI has over 40-year experience as a professional trader. He started his career in 1975 as a floor trader on the London Commodities Exchange for Merrill Lynch.

Since then he has worked for many well-known institutions and banks in London and overseas. He moved into fund management, technical analysis and analysis during his career. His institutional trading career was interrupted in 1999 when he was engaged as Global Head of Technical Analysis at Bloomberg.

After four years he returned to trading, running a hedge fund based in Cape Town, South Africa. He was on the board which founded the Society of Technical Analysis. He was involved in the creation of their professional qualification which is now franchised world-wide.

He is today a fund manager but also teaches working with professionals globally. He counts many top institutions amongst his clients. He has written several books and many articles and appears frequently on financial TV.

Trevor is an Accredited Training Provider with the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment (CISI).

Derek Taylor, ACIB, ACI, MSTA

CEO of Taylor Associates (International) Ltd, one of the City of London’s foremost financial and market training organisations. Taylor Associates was established in 1993, specializing in derivatives, capital markets, risk and treasury training. He has personally trained in banks, brokers, asset managers, hedge funds and corporations both in the UK and overseas.

Derek’s career started in Midland Bank Group Treasury working across a broad product range including Money Markets, Foreign Exchange, Equity and Fixed income. He rose to the level of senior Director, before moving to Lehman Brothers, and then Bank of America working both in London and NY.

Derek has primarily worked as a trader, both inter-bank and proprietary, but has also spent some years as an inter-bank broker, running desks at two of the world’s leading brokerage houses, Tullett Prebon and Harlow Butler Savage (now part of the ICAP group).

Derek is a frequent speaker on Financial Markets subjects all over the World, and is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB), a member of the Forex Association (ACI), and a member of the Society of Technical Analysts (MSTA).

Clive Lambert, MSTA MCSI

Clive has been in the City for 30 years, has been in the Futures Market for 25+ years as a Broker and Trader, and has been writing Technical Analysis for over 15 years.

He is a Board Member of the U.K. Society of Technical Analysts. He has spoken at several of the Society’s monthly meetings over the years and has also been enlisted as a regular lecturer on the Society’s annual Diploma Course, covering a wide range of subjects. He was on the board between 2003 and 2011 and rejoined in 2015.

He has taught Technical Analysis around the world, numbering the CME Group and London Stock Exchange among his clients in this respect.

He has had articles published in various Technical Analysis publications, is regularly quoted on the leading newswires, has appeared regularly on CNBC, and now is seen on Tip TV weekly.

His first book “Candlestick Charts” was released in January 2009

His main achievements:

  • 30 years market experience including 10 years on LIFFE Floor
  • Founding director of FuturesTechs
  • Leading figure in UK Society of Technical Analysts
  • Board Member from 2004 to 2011 and again from December 2015
  • Regular speaker on yearly Diploma Course since 2005
    Appearances on CNBC, Reuters TV & Tip TV.
  • Regularly quoted on DJ Newswires, Bloomberg and Reuters
Alan Burr, CHARTERED FCSI

Alan Burr has over 40 years’ international experience of financial markets.  He specialises in the securities and derivatives industry, with particular expertise in the establishment of new markets, trading, operations, regulation, risk management, corporate governance, clearing and settlement.

He has substantial executive experience with clearing houses, exchanges, international markets and in the management of IT.

He works extensively with international clients including banks, central banks, asset managers, brokers, custodians, service providers and exchanges.

He has deep derivatives and securities experience and is recognised as a leading authority in the field of operations, investment and risk management. He has taught students leading to the CISI Diploma in Global Operations Management for fifteen years. He is also on the training faculty of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), specialising in operations training.

Alan is an expert on derivatives, commodities, foreign exchange, fixed income and equities and has contributed to and led many projects to introduce new exchanges. He has also presented product training courses around the world covering the utilisation of these various asset classes in investment portfolios and the market disciplines associated including risk management approaches. Alan regularly provides education on all aspects of investment operations including trading, settlement, custody and asset servicing for examination and general educational purposes.

Following 20 successful years with ICCH (now LCH.Clearnet) until 1992 during which he was Chief Executive in Hong Kong and Executive Director in London, he joined MEFF, the Spanish Financial Futures Exchange, as its International Director. Today he is an independent advisor offering a broad range of professional services, which include consulting, management, training and expert witness work.

His main achievements:

  • Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (Chartered FCSI)
  • CISI accredited trainer and examiner
  • Chairman of the CISI Risk Forum
  • Deputy Chairman of the CISI Operations Forum
Paul Kitching, BSC ECON, MBA

Paul has been a financial trainer for the past fifteen years, specialising in treasury, capital markets and derivatives, drawing from experience gained in a professional career at blue chip institutions spanning eighteen years, and has run training programmes for the world’s leading financial institutions.

Paul started his career with Ernst & Young, before moving on to undertake a corporate treasury role with the UK Post Office at which time he gained admission to the Association of Corporate Treasurers as a full Member, before continuing his education by completing an MBA at Imperial College, London, specialising in quantitative finance. Paul took up the position of Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Finance at the University of Greenwich, before joining the London International Financial Futures & Options Exchange’s (LIFFE) education department as a senior manager. During this time, he was appointed visiting lecturer at the Cass Business School, delivering the Finance unit on the Executive MBA programme. He was also appointed Chief Examiner of the Chartered Investment & Securities Institute (formerly, the Securities Institute) Financial Derivatives Level 6 Diploma Paper, and was subsequently appointed a member of the Adjudicating Panel for the same paper, which is responsible for moderating the examination paper and ensuring consistency across papers and candidate scripts. A promotion at Liffe resulted in a transfer to the Product Development Department where he became Head of Interest Rate Development, responsible for maintaining the existing suite of derivative instruments, and introducing new contracts. A further promotion saw him become Head of Strategic Business Planning for the Exchange.

Paul left the Exchange in 2001 to focus on financial training. He is a leading faculty member of Euromoney Training, running both in-house programmes for global financial institutions and is Course Director on a range of open enrolment programmes, including Treasury Management, the Capital Markets, Derivative Instruments, and Risk. Paul has used his experience as Chief Examiner and Panel Member for the CISI Financial Derivatives Level 6 Diploma examination to design and deliver ten-day comprehensive training programme preparing candidates for the CISI Financial Derivatives Level 6 Diploma examination, and has guided more than a hundred delegates to success in this examination. Paul was appointed in May 2015 Level Verifier for the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) Level 6 Diploma qualification in Treasury Management, the Association’s benchmark qualification, and is responsible for coordinating the five unit papers of the Diploma and ensuring consistency across the five papers.

His main achievements:

  • BSc Economics & Accountancy (Joint Honours), University of Manchester
  • MBA, Imperial College, London, specialising in quantitative finance
  • Associate of the Institute of Taxation (entry by examination)
  • Member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (entry by examination)
Andres Bagnasco, MSC QUANT

Andres is the Director of Investment Management at the Uruguayan Catholic University, as well as being a Postgraduate Professor at multiple MBA / Finance Postgraduate Degrees and Finance Master programs both as resident or visiting professor.

He has over 14 years of relevant financial experience in positions such as Trading Room Manager, OTC Derivatives Market-maker, Risk Manager, Quantitative Trader, Hedge Fund Analyst, Portfolio Manager, Quant. Developer, Head Big Data Scientist and consultant to multiple Banks, Pension Funds, Family Offices, Hedge Funds, Brokers and Multinational Companies both in the Americas and Europe.

Highly specialised in the application of Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning) to trading and investment management portfolios across Equities, spot FX, Commodities, Derivatives, Fixed Income and ETFs.

He has lectured multiple courses on Trading, Quantitative Trading, Algorithmic Trading, Portfolio Management, Investment Management, Investment Advisory, Risk Management, Treasury Management, International Finance, Derivatives, Buy-side Operational Risk Management, Machine Learning and Big Data, Hedge Funds, Alternative Investments and High Frequency Trading, either as in-company institutional courses, open courses for private institutes, as well as at multiple Latin American Universities either as staff / visiting professor.

Andres has been officially awarded by the Uruguayan Catholic University as the “2014 MBA Professor of the Year” in its first prize edition, in recognition for his passion for financial markets, motivation, care and dedication to his students, selected by an official university poll among MBA graduates.

He delivers institutional-grade courses covering his fields of expertise in Spanish, English and Portuguese, being the head of LATAM Institutional Training at Knightsbridge Trading Academy.

Andres has authored and co-authored several books, magazine articles, academic papers as well as being a frequent visiting professor / speaker at conferences, being an expert in the fields of Trading, Risk Management, Hedge Funds, Derivatives, Portfolio Management, Investments, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence methods applied to portfolio management and trading.

His main achievements and qualifications:

  • MSc. Quantitative Finance – Alcala University (Spain)
  • MSc Data Mining & Machine Learning – UNED University (Spain)
  • Diploma in Hedge Fund Administration – Manchester University (UK)
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Finance – UDELAR University (Uruguay)
  • BSc in Chemical Engineering – UDELAR University (Uruguay)
  • Member of the Professional Risk Managers Association (PRMIA)
  • Big Data Analytics Specialisation coursework – Harvard University (USA)
  • Investment Management Specialisation – Geneva University (Switzerland)
Rui Goncalves De Oliveira, Retail Trader

Rui Oliveira is an alumni of the Institutional Trader Programme. Currently serves as the CEO of BFA Gestão de Activos, the asset management division of Banco Fomento Angola. He is an independent retail trader, and he also serves as a Board Member at Large at the Berkeley College Alumni Association.

Prior to BFA Gestão de Activos, Rui has held senior and mid-level banking and markets roles including: Head of Markets at the Debt Management Office (DMO) in 2017; Founding Member & Executive Board Member of the Angola Securities Exchange (BODIVA); and at other distinct firms in Angola such as the Capital Markets Authority, where he served as an adviser to the Chairman, and Banco Privado Atlantico (now Banco Millennium Atlantico), ranked in 2015, as 2nd “Top Tier 1 Growth” Bank by The Banker. He began his career in the financial sector working for multinational financial services corporations including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. He has volunteer at non- for-profit projects, such us working for a combined project of the United Nations (UN) and Berkeley College, and leading, through BODIVA, in 2015, a charity event whose main goal was to provide a better Christmas experience to less fortunate children.
Rui has graduated from Berkeley College in 2009 with a B.B.A. in Management, where he was inducted to the Sigma Beta Delta – International Honor Society for Business, Management and Administration, established to honor students who have rank in the top 20 percent of the junior, senior or graduate class, in business programs in schools and colleges within United States of America regional accreditation. An MSc in Finance alumnus from Imperial College London Business School, and completed executive programs related to securities trading and post trading at the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and the London Stock Exchange Group Academy.

Ronnie Chorpa, Chief Market Strategist

Ronnie has over 15 years experience working with financial products. He started his financial career at CMC Markets in 1999 working in CFD Equity Sales but he has been passionate about FX and UK equities since he was a teenager at King’s School, Canterbury. In 2001, he joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (now BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager) and worked there for over four years as a RFP analyst. Over the last decade, he has worked in a number of brokerage firms as a CFD and FX sales trader, market strategist and a partner.

Ronnie has been interviewed on a number of global business channels including BBC 1, BBC World, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN and Sky News about topics concerning the financial markets. Over the last few years, he has written articles for a number of global newspapers and financial websites including Reuters and Yahoo. He has written articles in City A.M and Shares Magazine and has lectured students from the University of Colorado about Equities. Ronnie has also been a public speaker at a number of financially focused events.
Ronnie holds a BSc Honours from Oxford Brookes University & an MBA from American College London. In 2016 he also completed an Asset Management course at The London School of Economics.
At KTA, Ronnie offers educational courses and lectures on Equities and FX, he gives practical situations that can be associated with the current markets. His interest is mainly in fundamentals of companies and is a value investor and contrarian at times. He is very personable and has genuine passion regarding the markets and this is demonstrated by his interest when he discusses financial topics on the various TV channels that he appears on.

  • Asset Management Executive, London School of Economics
  • BSc (Hons), Oxford Brookes University
Matt Shaw

Matthew Shaw has over 18 years’ experience of trading in the world’s futures, options and foreign exchange markets. He has developed sophisticated trading models and approaches particularly in relation to foreign exchange trading strategies. Matthew has had success trading both for his own account and for private high net worth clients. He was once the head Fx/Commodities trader on behalf of a Billion-Dollar investment fund, trading one of their SPV’s.

He now provides a mentoring and training service for individuals trading their own accounts; including daily news & market analysis service. Matthew was a regular contributor to the Investors Chronicle magazine.

Paul North

Experienced educator with a demonstrated history of working in the financial training & education sector. Skilled in derivatives, capital markets, including post trade clearing and settlement. Strong professional with a MSc in Banking and Finance and Bachelor of Arts (BA) focused in History both from University of London.