Exciting News about our Offerings!
Exciting news here at IPI! We have spent the last few years building our flagship programmes with Henley Business school - the Henley Executive Hedge Fund Program (a leading hedge fund certification offering) and the Henley Family Office Program (our family office executive education program). Both programmes are business school executive education courses which award certificates of completion from Henley Business School. They provide substantial opportunities to study the spectrum of functions involved in setting up and managing a hedge fund or a family office, touching on not only portfolio management but also all the other functions required to establish a successful hedge fund, by maximising operational alpha.
This year, in order to supplement those two major programs, we are launching the IPI Pro brand of courses. In line with our mission of being the premier brand of education provider in the asset management industry worldwide, we will be adding more specific, issue-targeted short courses, plus longer “learning pathways” covering some larger topics. Our focus will continue to be addressing management issues, but we will be concentrating on topics which engage our client base. The first addition to our catalogue is a family office education program, “Structuring a Family Office in Singapore”. We’ve created this course in response to clients who want to educate their own staff, and also who want to educate their clients in the key points of structuring a family office in Singapore before they come together in discussions. They see it as a great way to make their time with clients more efficient, as they won’t have to spend the first part of their time together bringing the clients up to speed.
Next up will be “FX Management for non-FX Professionals”, which can function as both a Hedge Fund Course and a family office program. It’s a truth that even many of the best portfolio managers don’t really understand how to manage their FX exposures. Many of them spend excessive amounts of money putting on unnecessary hedges, or conversely don’t hedge when they should. The Brexit-related currency shock, for example, had a huge impact on fund managers who were running assets in pounds sterling and investor shares in US dollars with no hedge on. This module will bring clarity to the mysteries of FX management. It will also be helpful to operations and finance staff and service providers who find themselves in a support role.
Future courses will include a learning pathway on Private Equity, and we are also considering Managing Digital Assets, Pre-Liquidity Event Planning and other topics. If you have suggestions, please let us know!
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On a separate topic, we celebrated International Women’s Day by offering five scholarships for High Potential women to take either of our two flagship courses. The scholarships will cover 100% of the tuition fee. We’ve received nominations from multiple continents and are looking forward to selecting the lucky women and meeting them online and in person. It’s been wonderful to read the nomination letters and to see the profiles of some successful, smart and motivated women in the financial services industry. We’re really happy to be supporting the industry’s push towards gender equality in the workplace.
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We interrupt this broadcast to bring you – a bonus cultural section!
Having seen all the news articles about ChatGPT, we wanted to check it out for ourselves and see what it could do.
Here are a couple of findings:
- It doesn’t know how master-feeder structures work. Sometimes it inverts the relationship, within a single response.
- It’s not great at poetry, but it’s probably better than most people. We asked it to write a sonnet in the style of William Shakespeare, about hedge funds. And here’s what it came up with:
Hedge funds, the masters of the market game,
With strategies as intricate as they're sly,
They buy and sell with lightning-fast acclaim,
And profit from the market's ebb and high.
Their methods oft are shrouded in secrecy,
A cloak of mystery that they maintain,
But when they strike, their impact can be huge,
And shake the very foundations of the game.
But as with any powerful tool,
There's risk in how it's wielded, and a cost,
For when the market turns and starts to drool,
The hedge funds may be caught and suffer most.
So let us tread with caution, and be wise,
And study how they work, with IPI.
* Disclaimer - we may have changed the last line…
Not bad!
And finally, we are continuing to get back to normal with our social events. Unfortunately, London continues to be plagued by train strikes, so after three consecutive cancellations we have decided to wait until the strikes are officially over. Here’s hoping the lucky year-of-the-rabbit’s foot kicks in and it’s not long too much longer to wait.
In Hong Kong, meanwhile, things are really looking up, with the end of the mask mandate, and we will be hosting Networking Cocktails on May 16th, when Anna is in town. Our networking events are an ongoing benefit for the participants in both our hedge fund course (the Henley Executive Hedge Fund Program) and the family office program (the Henley Family Office Program), bringing new connections and old friends together. Members of the IPI Professional Network are invited too. If you are not currently a member, sign up at https://www.ipi-edu.com/What-Is-The-IPI-Professional-Network. And take a look at our Photo Gallery to see pictures of previous events!
For further information, please contact Lisa So at lisa.so@ipi-edu.com.