Oneg Lamed’s story may sound like a fairytale, but one that features no princesses and castles, but rather a promotion to Managing Director at Morgan Stanley London, where Lamed currently serves as head of the Market Risk Management Department, specializing in interest rates, currencies, commodities, and valuation adjustments; and Europe.
In the past year, after 14 years of experience in banking and market risk management, Oneg was appointed one of 171 new senior Managing Directors. As an outstanding alumnus of the joint MBA and Statistics program, we are proud to congratulate Oneg on his recent appointment. We invited him for an interview to hear about his path and his many accomplishments.
A non-linear track to higher learning
Like in every good fairytale, Oneg’s journey was not an easy one. When he was 16, Oneg dropped out of school. “The fact that I’m able to learn was not clear to me at all. My path in life was not exactly a linear track toward higher learning.” He worked in a bar, enjoying his life and the money that he earned. “I had a really fun life. I stopped going to school. I felt rich when I had 200 shekels in my pocket.”
At 18, Oneg went to Amsterdam on a short trip that completely changed the trajectory of his life, and set him on a new and surprising path to love and his career. The story begins when Oneg met Mark, a trader from London. Today they live together in London, and Mark works as a pilot, but that’s already a different story.
Mark revealed to Oneg a whole new world of investments and trading, and pushed him to fill in his educational gaps created when he quit high school. After Oneg completed his high school requirements, returned to Israel and passed the entrance exam to begin his Bachelor’s degree at Hebrew University.
“I wanted to be a trader like Mark, so I decided to major in economics,” Oneg tells us. “However, when I went to register, they said to me ‘that’s nice, but this is Hebrew University. In your first year, you need to have a double major’.”
Oneg remembered his statistics courses that he took in London, and decided to major in Economics and Statistics. “Statistics did wonders for me, so much that I even continued on to get my Master’s in it. An arbitrary choice I made on the day I signed up for university ultimately changed my life!”
In 2007, Oneg graduated from the MBA program with Excellence, and in the process even managed to work as a TA in the Statistics Department, to gain working experience in the industry, and to maintain a long-distance relationship for 9 years. Eventually, Oneg followed his heart, and moved back to London to live with Mark.
“For me, my university years were a wonderful time period, where I realized that I love to learn (it really was not like that in school), to understand that what I’m learning will build me in the future. It was the first time that someone looked at me and saw that there was something special inside,” he shared about his professors that guided him throughout his studies.
“In my MBA, I took a few courses taught by Professor Zvi Weiner, and I felt that he paid attention to me. I even worked for him at one point; I was a teaching assistant for his Finance core MBA course. It was a very important stage in my development, to stand in front of people, to speak, to build my self-confidence. When I look back, these experiences gave me the tools I needed to get to where I am today.”
Oneg’s advice to students is to take and create opportunities to stand in front of a crowd. For example, he says, “I presented case studies in Organizational Behavior courses.” In his experience, most classes do not obligate students to stand in front of the classroom, and many students are worried and pass on these opportunities. “This is one of the most important skills afterwards in the workplace”.
Overcoming challenges
At the beginning of his studies, Oneg faced many challenges. “It took me two years to complete my first year of courses, because I had to retake some calculus courses. It was really hard for me emotionally; I still did not know if I had what it takes to attend university. But on the other hand, I had a lot of fun! I had friends, I had work, I left home. I guess it wasn’t all that bad to do my first year twice!” He continues, “It was not easy at all; completing a degree is very difficult.”
To students who are experiencing these kinds of difficulties, Oneg shares, “If you already passed one course, your next big course will suddenly seem less intimidating because you know that you have what it takes to succeed if you’re willing to work hard.” Oneg suggests that acknowledging the pressure allows you to understand that a lot of the difficulty stems from that alone.
Oneg found his first position in risk management before he even knew that it was what he wanted. He started working for the German bank WestLB, which did not survive the 2008 financial crisis. He reflects, “They were a good example of what not to do”.
He continued to work as a Market Risk Manager for Barclays Capital, and afterwards began his position at Morgan Stanley, until his most recent promotion. For Israelis who want to find work abroad, Oneg suggests that in order to compete in such a large environment, continue on to complete your Master’s and to gain work experience during your studies.
When asked what makes him happy, he replied “First of all, my work makes me happy. I randomly happened upon the thing I love most.”
Oneg has an optimistic message for the future, and believes that companies that were not looking for new employees because of Covid will now open many positions “I think it’s a great time to finish a degree and to enter the job market.”