Welcome Aboard, New NABE Members!

Please join the NABE Board of Directors and staff in welcoming new members who joined over the last two months. Since March 2007, 526 persons have joined NABE. New members are added to the on-line registry at http://www.nabe.com/mem/search.html at the beginning of each month.  The first issue of two IdeaLinks e-mailed to NABE members each month includes a listing of new members.   Here are selections from brief interviews, conducted by e-mail, with four new members:

Linsey Glass
U.S. Economist
Alliance Trust                                                                            
Dundee, Scotland

What is your current position?
I am the U.S. economist at Alliance Trust. I am responsible for analysing and forecasting economic trends in the U.S. economy, which I then feed into the investment department through reports, presentations, and meetings. I am part of a global economics team that also carries out original
research focusing on social and demographic issues.

What is the main focus of your company or organization?
Alliance Trust is an international investment and financial services group, specialising in fund management, pensions, and investment services.

What are your career highlights and education before your current job?
I graduated from Dundee University with a master's in business economics with marketing and German. I joined Alliance Trust in 2004, covering Asian economics. I spent three years analysing and forecasting trends in the Asian economies before moving to cover the U.S. economy only this year.

Why did you join NABE?
I think NABE is a great way of meeting other economists and sharing opinions on recent and future trends.

What drew you to economics?
At school I enjoyed math, but always felt that it was a very rigid subject. Economics allows you to apply math/statistics to everyday situations in a way that can be relevant to everyone. If you speak to anyone and mention what you do, everyone always has a question for you and an opinion on what is going on.

Jimmy Jean
Economist
RBC Capital Markets                                                                      
Toronto, Ontario

What is your current position?
I'm an economist with RBC's economics department. My role is to perform research and analysis on the financial services industry, commodity prices, and U.S. states. I also regularly present RBC's forecasts and research output in client conferences and media interviews.  I have held this position for one year.

What is the main focus of your company or organization?
RBC is the largest bank in Canada as measured by assets and market capitalization, with strong market positions in all banking businesses, either corporate/investment banking, personal/business banking, or wealth management.

What are your career highlights and education--before your current job?
Prior to joining RBC, I was an associate at Montreal-based consulting firm RSM Richter, providing economic advice to small businesses on transfer pricing and international taxation issues. I started my career as an economist at Statistics Canada, where I worked for five years. While at Statistics Canada, I wrote the annual manufacturing report and outlook, performed international productivity comparisons and research as well as industry level research. I got my Master's in Economics from HEC-Montreal in 2001.

Why did you join NABE?
I think the membership base is impressive, and a lot of valuable information is being shared among NABE members. I intend to develop my career by benefiting from that knowledge and expand my network.

What drew you to economics?
As a kid I watched evening news with my parents and was always puzzled by the stock market reports and charts. I could understand all the "normal" news but when it came to that I had no idea what they were talking about. As a teenager I decided I wanted to work with charts and numbers but it was only to "be like the guys on TV"! Thankfully, things got clearer in college and what really fascinated me was the apparent power to explain and predict very observable human behavior with complex theories and statistics. Today, I still think working with charts is cool, although I can better understand them and even get to be the "guy on TV" from time to time!