Mtg with John Sherriff et al

Hi Vince

I tried dialling you around 3pm UK time, and again at 3:30, but with no
luck. I met with John, Michael Brown, Tani, Joe Gold and Richard Lewis.

The meeting was productive, and all were positive about expanding the
Research team provided:
1. The people are working directly on commercial problems.
2. An outflow is eventually set up to match the inflow, so that Research acts
as a training ground for commercial-quality quantitative PhDs.

Since they acknowledge that some lag will be necessary before we can bear any
kind of outflow, this gives us an effective increase in headcount. Michael
Brown has agreed to a target (ambitious, but worth trying) of hiring two
commercial quality PhDs per quarter, on the agreement that in time we have an
outflow equal to this.

Given the current attempts to curtail hiring of "support" staff, I feel this
is as good a result as could be expected, and I'm certainly happy with it.

I've no doubt Tani will update you further when she sees you.

Steve