Risk management “quants”, or quantitative analysts, were considered until last year as a lesser-known species of the banking underworld. Armed with PhDs in theoretical physics and mathematics, they would typically keep themselves to themselves, creating models to assess the precise risk of holding financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities.

But billions of dollars of losses, several bank collapses, and one recession later, quantative risk analysts have been thrust into the limelight. And as the monumental failures of these risk management strategies begin to surface, quants have gone from being seen as rocket scientists, to being cast as the City’s villains.