In this season I thought I should share an inspiring story.
Vasant Baliga
The Indian who manages risk for JPMorgan, and blindness
New York Times Posted: Dec 04, 2010 at 0317 hrs
London As a trader at JPMorgan Chase in London, Ashish Goyal helps manage
billions of dollars of the bank’s exposure to risks like foreign exchange
fluctuations. In his spare time, he takes tango lessons, plays cricket and
goes
clubbing with friends. Goyal is also blind.
Watching him in the middle of the trading floor as he switches back and forth
between computer screens, that is not apparent at all. But to check his
e-mail,
read research reports and look at presentations, Goyal uses a screen-reading
software whose speed is so high that it sounds like gibberish to the untrained
ear. When he needs to read graphs, which the software cannot do, Goyal goes
through the data and tries to imagine the graph in his head.
On his desk, two computer screens show the usual flashing Bloomberg messages
and spreadsheets of constantly changing numbers. Two keyboards are linked to
headsets through which the information and figures are read out to him at rapid
speeds. The same technology reads out text messages he receives on his
cellphone.
“My colleagues already complained that they can’t hear my phone speak, as it
is
too fast,” Goyal said jokingly. “I turn around and say, ‘Well, I can’t read
your text messages, so it’s only fair.’ “
Tolga Uzuner, executive director of JPMorgan’s chief investment office and
Goyal’s boss, said he hired the 30-year old Wharton graduate because he was
one
of only a few candidates he interviewed who knew about Asian interest rates,
had excellent risk management skills and knowledge of foreign exchange.
Vladimir Aleksic, who now works with Goyal, said: “We walked out of the
interview room and just said wow.” Many people on the team analyze historical
data and use comparisons to make decisions about risks, Aleksic said, but
“Ashish looks at where things are now and just follows the news flow. He’s not
blinded by the graphs.”
But as someone who can make out only light and shadows, Goyal also knows his
limits. “I told people, ‘You can put me on the spot trading desk, but I’d be
too slow,’ “ he said. “The challenges are to realize where I can add value and
where I don’t. You need to find your niche.”
Goyal says he always wanted to work in financial markets. But despite a résumé
that includes a top business degree from a university in India, another from
the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a three-year stint at
an Indian subsidiary of ING bank, finding people who would hire him was not
easy.
After gaining his first business degree, Goyal said he had made the short list
of candidates for jobs at several firms, but once they realized he was blind
he
was turned away. When it was ING’s turn, Goyal recalled, he was so frustrated
that he just blurted: “I’m blind. Do you still want to talk to me or not?”
“They asked whether I could do the job. I said I think I can, and I was
hired,”
Goyal said.
Years later, when he applied to Wharton with the goal of getting a job in New
York or London, Goyal said, the university’s director of admission signed off
on his application with the words: “I have never seen a blind trader on Wall
Street. I can’t guarantee you’ll get a job but you’ll definitely be better off
with a Wharton degree.”
Still, even after Wharton, many Wall Street firms rejected his applications
because they could not find anybody else on Wall Street using the same
screen-reading software. JPMorgan was the only bank to offer him a summer
internship, which led to an offer of a permanent position.
Goyal was not born blind. Growing up in Mumbai, Goyal said he had a normal,
happy childhood. But when he was about 9 years old, he noticed that he could
not immediately recognize some people and could not see the lines in his
notebooks at school. One night he walked into a ditch, later he crashed his
bicycle, and then he started to miss the ball during his tennis lessons.
Goyal was told he had retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that damages
the retina, and would gradually become blind. By the time Goyal was 22, he had
completely lost his eyesight.
The loss of his eyesight left Goyal “scared and confused” and with fewer
friends, he said. “I was ready to just give up and not take my final exam and
just go and work for my dad,” a real estate developer, Goyal said. But his
mother forced him to sit for the exam, and to his surprise he not only passed
but received good grades.
Despite his achievements, which this year also included a national award from
India for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Goyal speaks modestly
of himself.
“One challenge is that I don’t become a benchmark for other people,” he said.
“I’ve done all these things but yes, it’s been a struggle. Not
