Profile | Trader with a taste for Fela and royalty
KWEKU Adoboli, the 31-year-old trader at the centre of a $2bn storm yesterday, is “a typical trader type, like a lot of these guys”, coming across as self-confident and calm under pressure, according to one professional contact who spoke to him recently.
He is also hard-working. “He was pretty committed to his job at UBS… in there early and out late,” said the contact. That is a picture given ample support by the time and place of his arrest, at 3.30am on Thursday from UBS’s City office, although he was likely aware of the coming storm by that point.
He has worked at the bank since 2003, joining straight out of Nottingham University where he studied computer science. He entered first as a trainee and then became a trade support analyst in the back office before moving on to the Delta One equity trading desk, where he rose to become a director focused on exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
But he has interests outside the City, including photography and cycling, and is a fan of the Nigerian Afrobeat singer Fela Kuti as well as electro music producer MC Xander and the UK singer and pianist Gwyneth Herbet.
He lived for some time in Shoreditch and listed the local Boundary Restaurant & Bar as a favourite haunt. But he was also is a member of a Facebook group named ILoveGhana.com, a community group based in Tema.
Among the other groups listed on his profile is one devoted to the unusual hat worn by Princess Beatrice to the royal wedding.