What do you do now?
I am Head of Wholesale Lending, Strategy and Change at Barclays. 
I work within the Barclays Investment Banking division, based in London, as the Head of Wholesale Lending Strategy Change. We support clients with their lending needs, both for day-to-day working capital and longer term investments, mergers and acquisitions. Our clients range from firms with a turnover of over £25 million to the largest firms in the world. My role is quite varied, therefore every day is different. I get to my desk at 7.30am and leave at 5.30-6.00pm each day. I spend a lot of my day in meetings talking to team members and clients around the world.
In addition to my day-to-day role, I am Vice Chairman of the Loan Market Association, the main Trade Association representing the syndicated loan market globally. I work closely with peers from other banks to look and drive efficiency across the market.
I studied Economics, History and Geography A Level at South Craven. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger, but realised when studying that I was much more practical and hands-on and found memorising facts difficult, something which is critical for a lawyer! Therefore, I chose to study Management Science At Loughborough. The advantage of their business degrees is that it is a four-year degree, with the third year giving you the opportunity to work for a year in industry. This is a fantastic opportunity, as it gives you a year in a mini graduate-style role, earning real money with the potential of a job offer. I did a year out at computer company Fujitsu, providing technology solutions to banks.
Although I was offered a job, I decided I wanted to go into banking, and joined Citigroup’s graduate programme. My year out was critical in getting a graduate job for me and my friends, as we could talk about practical real-life business scenarios in our interviews. I did a number of roles at Citigroup, mainly in their Operations division, before moving to Barclays. I first ran their Loan Operations team, before moving to a Project role to manage our Brexit transition programme. I then supported the Barclays transition from LIBOR (London Inter-Bank Offered Rate) before moving into my current role.
What advice would you give your 17-year-old self?
Work hard at school and really push yourself to maximise your potential.
What are you most proud of?
Representing Barclays at the Bank of England’s LIBOR Transition Steering Committee, which was sponsored by Andrew Bailey, the now Governor of the Bank of England.
I led work on loan transition across the market and represented the Sterling working group in International Call, with other global regulators from around the world.
