Work the problem like an analyst.
The Research Desk Cohort is a finance research program for high-school students that runs more like an analyst desk than a classroom. You take one real question — how does an entire country go broke? — break it apart, test what the evidence supports, and help write a final research report with a clear point of view.
It's institutional-style research, scaled for high schoolers who are ready for it: weekly desk meetings, a working group on Slack between sessions, real sources, and a mentor who did this work inside J.P. Morgan.
An analyst-style desk for high-school finance students.
Nobody hands you a topic and tells you to go write 3,000 words. You work the way a junior analyst would: read the source base, separate signal from noise, hold a view up in front of the room, and turn it into a report people actually want to read.
Weekly desk meetings
Each week you meet with the mentor to walk the problem, call out the weak claims, weigh the evidence, and decide what the desk takes on next.
Work between calls
The thinking doesn't stop when the call ends. Students trade sources on Slack, sharpen each other's follow-ups, and keep the report moving all week.
A room of serious peers
You work alongside other finance-curious students. You see how strong people reason, where arguments break, and where your own view still needs proof.
A final desk report
Everything builds toward one research report. Contributor credit follows real work and clear thinking, not whoever talks the most.
Alex Dryden has done the work he's teaching.
That's the thing this cohort is built on: real market judgment, research discipline, and a habit of getting students to reason about finance the way working analysts do.
Alex spent more than a decade at J.P. Morgan Asset Management as a Global Market Strategist across London and New York. As an Executive Director on the Global Market Insights team, his job was turning macro noise into a view a client could act on.
He's now finishing a PhD in Economics at SOAS, University of London, working on sovereign defaults, currency markets, and bond markets. That's why the first desk problem sits squarely in his lane: debt, policy credibility, market pressure, and what investors do when the story stops adding up.
A decade inside institutional markets, now teaching the method.
Alex spent over ten years inside institutional markets, across macroeconomics, central banks, fixed income, and U.S. bond markets. The cohort takes that research-desk discipline into a high-school setting: define the problem, read the evidence, build the view, then defend it.
J.P. Morgan background.
A decade-plus at J.P. Morgan Asset Management as a market strategist, across macro, investment strategy, central banks, fixed income, and bond markets.
Sovereign debt focus.
Now a PhD researcher at SOAS, working on sovereign defaults, currency markets, bond markets, and the financial plumbing behind debt stress.
A voice in financial media.
His market commentary has appeared across outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, and institutional research platforms.
Climate finance research.
His work on debt-for-nature swaps appeared in Asia Development Review and was presented at Cambridge, drawing on a database of 169 transactions across 45 countries.
Why this matters for you: the cohort is built directly around Alex's strongest lane — sovereign defaults, currency markets, bond markets, and the pressure points that decide whether a country stabilizes, muddles through, or breaks.
How does an entire country go broke?
It's one of the most dramatic stories in finance, and it plays out in real time. A government borrows too much. Its currency starts to slide. Reserves run thin, policy credibility cracks, and markets begin asking the one question that decides everything: can this country still pay its bills? The desk takes that apart, the way analysts did through every real crisis you've heard of.
When borrowing turns into a trap.
Students dig into debt loads, refinancing risk, and fiscal choices, right up to the point where the debt stops looking manageable.
When a currency falls apart overnight.
The desk works through currency pressure, reserves, and capital flight, and why FX markets often move before the official story does.
When yields start telling the truth.
Students connect bond yields, credit spreads, and default risk to read the moment investors start demanding to be paid for the danger.
From the opening brief to a finished report.
Enough structure to keep you from wandering, enough room to actually think. The work moves through sources, evidence, debate, thesis, and revision — the same arc real research follows.
The desk opens
You meet Alex, get the first briefing, and start from a curated source base instead of wandering into the open internet.
Problem framing
The group learns the core issue and starts shaping angles around sovereign stress, currency pressure, and debt sustainability.
Evidence building
You work through sources, country cases, currency moves, reserve pressure, and what the bond market is signaling.
Argument development
The desk settles on its central view, and each student takes clear ownership of a piece of the analysis.
Draft and revision
You tighten the report until it reads like a real research note: clear problem, clear evidence, clear view.
Apply for the Research Desk Cohort.
GRF admits for fit, not for a perfect resume. You don't need to arrive a finance expert. You do need curiosity, follow-through, and a real willingness to think like an analyst: read closely, ask better questions, change your mind when the evidence says so, and take feedback well.
Seats are capped at eight because the desk only works if the mentor can see who's thinking, who's contributing, and who's doing the work.
This is the founding cohort. It's the smallest the room will ever be, the most direct mentor access it will ever offer, and the lowest price it will ever carry — $499 here, $1,199 from the next cohort on.
Start your application.
Tell us who you are, what you're curious about, and why this analyst-style desk is the right room for you right now.
A finance desk, scaled for serious high-school students.
Work with Alex Dryden on how countries break — sovereign defaults, currency pressure, and bond-market stress — through a real analyst process: opening brief, source work, debate, revision, and a finished research report you can stand behind.