Who is behind BankeronWheels.com?
We are an experienced team of Investment Professionals and Cyclists located across Europe and Asia. We believe in making investing more honest, transparent and accessible. We have a core team of Investment Analysts, but also Consulting Expertise and a dedicated Investment Research Review Panel.
IN A NUTSHELL
- How It All Started – The website was founded in 2020 by Raph, initially as an Investment and Cycling blog – hence its catchy name. Francesca helps Raph with the daily operations.
- Investment Professionals, Academics, and Diverse Individual Investors – The team comprises members with decades of experience working for Wall Street’s most prestigious financial institutions, and individuals from different backgrounds including academics to ensure a variety of opinions. Occasionally, we also collaborate with other European bloggers on select articles.
- Critical Minds & Expert Panel Challengers – While quality and values set us apart from traditional financial media, we want to go a level beyond. Some of our contributors have particularly critical minds and add to our analysis, taking the perspective of pragmatical wise individual investors. In addition, we have also formed an Investment Research Review Panel, with decades of experience in Portfolio Management. The panel fulfils the role of ultimate challenger to ensure the highest quality of analysis.
Here is the full analysis
TEAM
The website was founded in 2020 by Raph Antoine. It began as a cycling and investing blog, hence its catchy name. Raph brings first-hand Institutional Portfolio Management experience from some of the most prestigious names in the financial industry in London and Paris, where he grew up. He managed multi-billion Portfolios, and led Special Situation projects in multiple jurisdictions, including during the Global Financial Crisis and the European Debt Crisis. Raph holds an MSc in Financial Engineering, an MSc in Capital Markets, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). He speaks French, English and Polish, is brushing up his German and learning Japanese. In 2019, Raph left the City of London to cycle the world on a UK-designed, Taiwan-made Pinnacle Arkose I. Due to the hospitality he witnessed, he felt a strong need to pay it forward, and contribute to society that took the form of this website.
In 2019, Raph left the City of London to cycle the world. Due to the hospitality he witnessed, he felt a strong need to pay it forward, through some form of social contribution. But the COVID lockdown in Morocco narrowed down the possibilities, and an interesting discovery made him consider another way of contributing to society. In 2020, Bankeronwheels.com was born. For the initial 3 years it remained a simple blog providing honest and wise investing guidance.
To learn more about those early days, and the life he chose to live, visit the lifestyle section, that includes:
- 8 Investing lessons I learned from Cycling the World. You may think that spending over a decade on Wall Street would teach me more about successful investing than cycling. Surprisingly, Wise Money is more about perspective than technicals.
- Impact of Mindfulness on Investing – And my experience of Vipassana, in Japan and Vancouver.
- Adventure Cycling Guides – The Lifestyle section of the website contains extensive Cycling Guides. Of all the places I’ve cycled through, in both Morocco and Japan I’ve spent at least 12 months from 2019 to 2023, so I focus on them more.
- Practical Cyclcing Insights to get started. While you may be here to read about investing, some of you were curious about ways to travel the world on a bike. In 2019, I covered 20k km with a rugged touring setup, favouring it over the sleeker bikepacking style. It let me venture into the wild autonomously for up to a week. Now, I’m into shorter bikepacking adventures.
Francesca worked as strategic consultant in leading consulting firms, and later in the automotive and pharmaceutical sectors. She is in charge of the charities and other ways of contributing to society, travel and personal finance sections and overall strategy. Francesca grew up in Northern Italy, and lived across several Asian and European countries, including China and the U.K. Francesca loves Yoga, Swimming, Travelling and has a strong interest in sustainability and social issues. She speaks Italian, English and Spanish and is working on her Portuguese and French. Francesca is currently travelling across Asia and restarted cycling when visiting Vietnam.
Contributors
Alex is an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering. With a particular focus on evidence-based investing, he brings the view of an informed layperson with an academic twist to the Bankeronwheels.com team. Alex is particularly focused on translating the often US-centric academic research into simple and actionable information for European investors, with an emphasis on factor investing. Alex is currently trying to lead a low-impact life in the Netherlands and gets around on his trusty and comfy (pre-owned) Omafiets.
Ahmed, a CFA level 3 candidate, is a finance professional with extensive experience in Wholesale Banking, focusing on Project Finance and Transaction Banking. Given the growth of UCITS ETFs outside of Europe, he brings a view of an Asian Investor that invests through European Index Products. Ahmed also understands the risks and opportunities of the digital space, including Web 3. He believes the Godfather to be the greatest movie ever made, Pink Floyd the best band and Lionel Messi as the GOAT. Husband to a beautiful wife who happens to be the mother of three dragons (not Emilia Clarke). Ahmed lives in South Asia. He is an avid cyclist, thanks to his eldest.
Kathrin is an independent teacher and writer with a keen interest in Personal Finance topics. As a self-employed, she quickly realised that she had to take her financial future into her own hands, so she studied how to save, invest, and plan for Early Retirement. Kathrin joined Bankeronwheels.com to bring a new perspective as she started her portfolio from scratch in her early twenties and understands the challenges people face when first starting out. Kathrin currently lives in London but grew up on the continent and also takes a view of a European reader. Kathrin gets around on her foldable and electric GoCycle GX bike.
Romain is a former banker and strategy consultant. Romain is a CFA Charterholder and a Professional Risk Manager (PRM). Researching Financial Independence topics a couple of years ago, naturally led him to Bankeronwheels.com. Romain joined the team to share his perspective and experience, aiming to ultimately empower Bankeronwheels.com readers to make more informed Life and Financial decisions. A modern-day explorer, Romain currently spends most of his time around the beautiful worlds of music and philosophy. During the weekend, he explores the countryside of his native Belgium on a Scott Speedster Gravel.
Maciej is an executive with 13 years of experience in C-suite roles in General Management, Finance, and Operations in Poland and internationally. He has hands-on experience in M&A and corporate ventures. Maciej is a born rebel who loves to challenge mainstream opinions and authorities hence many debates between him and well-known finance professionals (Raph👋). He also has a relentless focus on details and believes that in God we trust, all other brings data. He is a kitesurfer and snowboarder, owns a Specialized Diverge bike, but his true hobby is business and finance. Maciej lives in Warsaw with two kids and speaks English and Polish. His portfolio is very simple as he follows Golden Retriever principles.
Investment Research Review Panel
Thorsten Palinkas
Thorsten is a Portfolio Manager and Senior Executive Advisor with over 20 year of experience managing Public and Private Fixed Income, Alternative Investments and Real Estate and Aviation Assets. In his prior roles at Tier 1 US, European and Japanese Investment Banks, Thorsten oversaw teams and managed up to $30bn portfolios, including very successful Long/Short Funds. More recently, Thorsten was a Senior Portfolio Manager at BlackRock, advising large Financial Institutions, Central Banks and Financial Regulators. Thorsten graduated from Hochschule Fuer Wirtschaft und Umwelt in Nuertingen. He is also a CFA Charterholder. Thorsten grew up in Germany, but spent most of his career between London and Singapore, where he currently lives.
From Bankeronwheels.com
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