Name: David Overton
Subject: BSc Computer Sciences
Graduated: 1992
Place of work: Microsoft
Position: Partner Account Manager

David is responsible for collaborating with a small number of software partners who build and deploy joint software using Microsoft technologies.

What first attracted you to Royal Holloway?

I was looking for a degree which gave me a good level of practical and theoretical teaching and Royal Holloway had the best degree in the country for what I wanted to do.

The course had tutors who were well-published and well-versed in up-and-coming technology. Royal Holloway taught Computer Science in a unique way that was aligned to how I wanted to learn.

What did Royal Holloway teach you?

Royal Holloway is a very international College – you realise that the world is much bigger than you ever imagined.

Royal Holloway also gave me a huge breadth of knowledge, enabling me to work broadly in the IT industry, where I have to understand both the business impact and the technological impact of decisions.

What’s happened in your career?

I joined Microsoft in 2000 and my role was to engage with customers to explain how our products could help them in complex and often mission critical environments.

When I became Head of Technology for small business, I was responsible for pulling together different parts of Microsoft’s desktop and software products to give them a single view. My role is to help them work internally with Microsoft and customers so that we both win business.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed is supporting the graduate recruitment process. Working and mentoring graduates to help them improve their decision making process and drive their career paths is really fulfilling.   

Name: Hiten Rawal
Subject: BSc Computer Science
Graduated: 2000
Place of work: Convertible Bond Technology
Position: Global Head

What first attracted you to Royal Holloway?

The Founder’s Building! But also the proximity to London, the calibre of the teachers within the Computer Science department and the general reputation of the university.

What did Royal Holloway teach you?

The programming courses were interesting as they quickly taught you a core skill in developing applications.

It was interesting that there was a computational finance course on offer - this is very rare within most Computer Science courses but is highly regarded by investment banks.

What’s happened in your career?

Shortly after Royal Holloway, I joined the graduate programme at an investment bank, completing an extremely practical and intensive training programme with other graduates including those in sales, trading and corporate finance.

I started out by specialising in developing trading and pricing/risk related software for the front-office. After about four years I moved to another bank to focus on a new project to build out algorithmic trading systems.

I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to move to New York through my current role. We are starting to build out the next generation of our global Convertible Bond sales, trading and strategy system.