Former chief technology officer, William Ferreira has returned to Man as the technology group’s new head of machine learning.

The discretionary investment management business of Man Group, Man GLG, has appointed a head of machine learning.

The company announced today that it had appointed its former chief technology officer, William Ferreira to the newly-created role which would have responsibility for developing Man GLG’s machine learning capabilities, providing the firm’s portfolio managers with tools and techniques through which to support their analysis and decision-making processes.

Man said Ferreira would also work directly with Man GLG’s teams on the application and interpretation of machine learning techniques in relation to topics such as analysing news and social media, market events and announcements, and the visualisation of complex data.

The company said Ferreira would utilise the knowledge and expertise available across Man Group, including working collaboratively with Man AHL’s machine learning team in circumstances where Man AHL has been actively researching machine learning techniques and applying them within its client trading programmes for several years.

Ferreira joins Man GLG from Florin Court Capital prior to which he worked as technology manager for Man AHL from 2011 to 2014.