Kristoffer Milonas
1. Describe your role and what it is that you do overall and on a day-to-day basis.
2. What interested you about the field you are currently in?
I enjoy applying the quantitative and business skills I gained from my education to new questions where there's often not a clear roadmap for how to do things. The mission of the company also resonates with me - far too many people can't get credit at all or pay way more than they should, partly due to lenders using outdated models.
3. Why did you choose to study your subject area at SSE?
I enjoyed the undergrad finance courses, it seemed natural to continue!
4. How did your time/education at SSE help guide you to the career journey you have embarked on?
In many ways! Our work sometimes raises pretty fundamental economic questions, and the grounding in economic theory has been useful for helping me structure a framework for addressing them. Aside from the obvious benefit of the quantitative courses, I also found that some of the courses taught you how to integrate ambiguous information and situations where it's not clear from the beginning what the most material questions are. I have found this very useful for real world settings where it's much less clear than in the textbook what the right questions are, let alone the right answers.
5. What path did you take from graduation to where you are now?
- PhD at SSE, during which I also was a visiting researcher at LSE.
- Research Economist at the Bank of England, doing a mix of research and policy work.
- Associate Director at Moody's Analytics, developing predictive models for credit risk applications.