Fidelity Careers: Meet Nieves

What attracted me to Fidelity was its independence and the fact that it was focused solely on investments. I joined as a Research Associate in the Equity Team. I was responsible for radio stocks, which was fascinating and I gradually got more responsibility in this team adding Pubs and Breweries and then Small and Mid cap Food stocks to my coverage (all of which was within the Consumer team). My coverage changed after a couple of years and I switched responsibilities to cover Medical Technology and Healthcare companies and then changed to Chemical stocks. The work within the different sectors was the same and involved looking at companies, assessing stocks and recommending to the Portfolio Manager whether we should buy or sell. So, firstly I needed to understand the sector. Then I needed to analyse and make recommendations. And then I had to put my ideas into action. I loved it because I was constantly learning.

I moved to my current team – MultiManager – in 2003, when it was in the process of being set up. I am now a Portfolio Manager in this team. There are a lot of similarities between MultiManager and what I was doing before. In my previous job I was picking stocks, so I needed to research the company, its sector and do both qualitative work and quantitative work such as financial modelling and valuations. In MultiManager I pick funds and Portfolio Managers rather than stocks. So I have to research the funds and firms and do quantitative analysis on their returns and holdings. Instead of interviewing company managers, I now interview Portfolio Managers. For both areas, you need to be on top of the markets and know what’s happening, so you use the same skills to understand what they’re doing.

I do a lot of reading on the markets from day to day as well as research to find new funds and I go to a lot of investment management company meetings. For example, I have meetings with the Chief Investment Officers of investment management firms. There’s a lot of travel, because I cover North America, Global Natural Resources and Real Estate. There’s also a lot of desk work, putting funds together, analysing returns and looking at performance. I share my knowledge with other team members, so I need to be aware of what’s happening in other asset classes too.

During my career I’ve met some fascinating people. To succeed here you need a free-thinking approach. It’s an entrepreneurial culture full of very smart, hard working people. I haven’t met anyone who isn’t passionate about their job.

Nieves at Fidelity