Director of Pan-European Equity Sales - Richard Manning

Investment Banks have the most extraordinary number of jobs within them - it can be completely mind-boggling. Every time we went near one, we found a whole new department or group of people that did something we’d never heard of. This seems to be due to the immense specialisation within banks, where it can be quite possible to sit next to someone but have no idea what they do.

There are a couple of major distinctions worth highlighting. Investment Banking or ‘IBD’ tends to be the department which most people imagine when thinking about an investment bank. They are the ones doing huge M&A deals, putting in incredibly long hours (14 hours plus each day - including weekends, for months at a time - is not uncommon) and schmoozing with business leaders. Work/life balance is not easily found, but on the flipside the work you do will likely be high-profile and give you an enormous breadth of business and finance experience. This means that if you want to leave London or Investment Banking at some point you shouldn’t have a problem, as the skills gained are very transferable. We've met ex-bankers in companies ranging from renewable energy start-ups to large pharmaceuticals.

Capital Markets is where you’ll find the traders, salespeople and research analysts. They’re market-based and are the ones you see on TV shouting down phones and pacing frantically in front of five flickering computer screens. They’re monitoring market activity and reacting immediately to any changes. It’s noisier and a bit more adrenalin-fuelled than IBD. One of the big perks of Capital Markets (other than the actual job), is that the hours tend to reflect those of the market. That means early starts, with most people in the office by 6.30am, but it also means you tend to be out by six in the evening - and there is almost never weekend work. So if you’re an early riser the work/life balance is pretty good, especially compared to IBD. One limiting factor is that you’re in a highly specialised, role usually in a very specific market area, so there’s not much in the way of transferable skills. If you’re an FX institutional salesperson it’s not that easy to move into another product area, and you’re going to be tied to working in London (or another major financial centre).

Beyond these two areas you have a massive range of middle and back office functions. There’s Technology, Operations, Legal, Finance, Marketing and HR for a start. So if banking interests you then it’s definitely worth looking at the breadth of what’s on offer. The other thing that struck us about banks was just how diverse they were. Without doubt, they had the most mixed workforces we saw, with every member of a team often from a different country. While this makes for a really dynamic and interesting work environment, it does mean that when you’re applying for a job, you’re not just up against your peers in this country but across the whole world - so that application form had better stand out!

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Richard Manning, I am a Pan-European Equity Salesman on the hedge fund sales desk at BOA Merrill Lynch and I have been at BOA Merrill Lynch for three years.

What is Investment Banking?

Investment banking is the oil that makes the world go round. If a company wants to exist they have to have money - how does a company raise money? If you were to come into me today and say you had a great business idea, this is what you wanted to do - how do I know it was a great idea? - you would have to have a proper business plan. So similarly if you went into your local high street bank and wanted some money it is just that, on a much bigger scale. If you look at a business they will be funded by debt, cash or by equity and ultimately they are the three things that make the world go round. So we will go there and we will find investors, and we will find people with big pots of money, and ultimately we are acting as intermediaries between those people with the idea and the people with the cash. One of the ideas that is prevalent at the moment is Sovereign Wealth Funds. It has been well-documented the amount of cash that Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, China have got because of their natural endowment of natural sources of oil, of metal in the ground. So these countries have got a lot of cash but they haven’t yet got the infrastructure to benefit from making that cash into more cash. What the West is very good at is capitalism and ultimately the Sovereign Wealth nations, that will be where ultimately the centre of the financial worlds will move, but at the moment, these guys sitting in China with a trillion dollars of assets in reserves need to be able to put that cash to work, rather that holding it in US treasury bonds where they are earning an ever lower yield. So one of the essential roles of an investment bank and a bank full stop is to match up that pool of cash with the user of that cash, i.e. a company, so it could be a company who is maybe trying to put a train line across China or Russia. There is a company in Russia at the moment who is trying to raise equity finance to go down the route of building a railway across Russia at the moment, and one of our roles will be to say: ‘There is this company that have got this plan, Russia have got a lot of cash but they need some more cash from outside investors and they need more skills from outside investors as well from outside companies’, and it is just trying to facilitate these guys talking and us acting as middle men for them.

What attracted you to this career?

The reason I came into this industry goes back a long, long time – my uncle was a trader and when I was about twelve I saw he had a nice car and a nice house and thought: ‘Where can I get that and what can I do that gives me that kind of lifestyle?’ So I started doing some research into banking and initially I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and then realised that I was much better with numbers than I was with literature and English, and thought that would be the best way. So I went on to do an Economics degree at Birmingham University and started work at Dresdner, and then moved over to Merrill a few years later, so that was the genesis of what attracted me to banking above anything else.

Why Sales?

It was quite bizarre why I wanted to go into sales eventually. My uncle is a trader so I suppose I saw what he did from a very early age and thought that would be something I could do. Having done a lot of research on banking while I was at university I thought trading or sales and definitely markets would be most interesting to me. I suppose it is what you see in everyday life, I was interested in stocks and shares from a very young age, you see the FTSE 100 at the end of the news everyday and I thought actually that could be something I would be interested in. Yes, banking in interesting, but I thought for me, with some of my skills - I am quite quick witted, quite quick thinking, good with people, and can take in a lot of information and make stuff up very quickly - I thought that a role in sales and trading and ultimately sales would be the best for me - and I didn’t fancy staying after midnight on any nights either.

What does your job involve?

The best way to think about what I do is I advise people who run big pots of money, where to put there cash. So imagine you have your car insurance, your car insurance might be with the Prudential. You give them £1000 a year or whatever your insurance costs, they don’t make much of their money out of your car insurance premium, they actually expect to lose money there. But what they will do is they will take your premium along with everyone else that has taken car insurance out and they will invest it in the stock market or into the bond market or into currency markets. I ultimately, with a combination of my research analysts and meeting companies all day long, just try and pick out the best investment ideas that I can find for them that will suit their needs and try and pitch those ideas to them. So for example, last night we had the management of Royal Bank of Scotland in the office and today I will be talking to my clients at the Royal Bank of Scotland and whether it is or not a good investment - and that is ultimately how I help my clients.

What do you do on a typical day?

This is where it gets scary, I am in the office at six o'clock every morning, which to a lot of people wouldn’t like that, but the benefit is that I am not there after midnight, as I said before. My days consists of…when I get into the office I must admit I am one of the first in, so I am a geek when it comes to that, but I like to see what has happened in the US overnight and one of the best things about working for Merrill Lynch is the fact that we are the biggest US broker so we have the best US news flow from overnight and best sort of colour and feel for what has happened in the US markets, which of course is extremely important about what is going to happen in the markets in the day ahead. So I like to work out what has happened in the US overnight, what has happened in Asia that morning, any new research that we have come up with - because the research is basically my building blocks for my sales when I speak to my clients. We have a morning meeting at about seven o'clock and that would normally last until about seven thirty or eight o'clock, but by about seven thirty I am on the phone to clients and I am on the phone solidly from about seven thirty to about midday speaking to clients. The way it works is you are an account manger for certain accounts which is exactly what it says on the tin, you manage that account and make sure that everyone at that account is being spoken to by the right people by the right research analysts, by the right salesman, etcetera. Then on another account you would just speak to the individual fund manager, but you are on the phone to them for a lot of the time. Then there’s voicemails in the morning as everyone is busy and there are people at other firms in the City doing exactly the same job as I am doing  - so everyone is trying to get hold of these people. So you will either get them on voicemail quite often or if you converse with them it could be to pitch one stock idea, it could be a chat about the whole market or it could just be where they are taking their business and how we at Merrill Lynch could take that forward. So the morning is consistently on the phone for four or five hours. Normally we will have a company in for lunch and we will go and speak to the Chief Executive, the CFO, and hear what their investment proposition is and hear what their story is. Then in the afternoon you usually get some US economic data in around about one-thirty, which sets the tone for the afternoon – the US markets open about two-thirty. And then the afternoon, straight after the company lunch, you are talking about the company you have just seen or some more research that has just come out, or just more ideas, because obviously stocks are moving throughout the day so it’s not a snap shot in time. Things are moving through the day and things are always happening. The afternoon will be a similar story to morning but slightly less urgent calls and quite often I will be on the phone until five or six at night. Then quite often we will have a company in after that, so normally I am out of the office by six, half past six. It’s a long day but it is pretty exciting and very rarely are you looking at your watch and wishing time would hurry up.

Who do you liaise with on a daily basis?

I am a Director on the Equity Sales desk and I will speak to other Directors, Managing Directors, Vice-Presidents, and Associates that sit on my desk already. I will speak to Managing Directors, Directors across the floor, whether that be in Trading, Sales Trading, Equity Derivatives, Specialist sales, or salespeople for other regions - because we’ve got a very big US and Asian emerging markets sales franchise. I will speak to Managing Directors and Directors in investment banking, I will basically speak to anyone and everyone who can help me out regardless of job title and I would happily call the cleaner, it wouldn’t interfere with what I do on a day-to day-basis. I know in some roles in banking, titles are everything but sitting in global markets, titles are irrelevant. At the end of the day you are just an individual who is getting on with their job and is useful for other people on the floor, and whether someone is a graduate or analyst or they are the CEO of the company, it doesn’t really make a difference to me on a day-to-day basis. If they have some value that can be added or I have some value that can be added to them I will speak to them.

How can someone decide if Sales is for them?

The one thing that people should definitely ask is can they wake up at five-thirty every morning for long time, because that will make a difference, but the one thing to definitely find out if it is right for you is if you are interested in companies; it is right for you if you are interested in talking to people about companies. But it has got to excite you because you are there for sixty or seventy hours a week and you are there for too long for it not to interest you. So you have got to think long and hard about, do companies interest you, do markets interest you, does psychology interest you - because one of the things we haven’t touched on is the important thing in financial markets and selling is psychology. Because you are dealing with humans and human decisions, and so ultimately if people interest you, if economics interest you, if decision-making interests you, this is the job for you.

What are the specialisms within your industry?

I'm in the Equities market and in the fixed income world, which is also quite similar with some subtle differences, but in Equities there are four main roles. There is research, these are the guys who will know a hell of a lot of detail about a few companies, there are sales guys who know a little less about lots and lots and we work very closely with our clients and our clients are often the same people but it is just the degree of knowledge and degree of depth that we know a particular company in.  You have got specialist sales which is exactly what it says in the tin - it is between sales and research and they will know a sector in a lot of detail, so they will know about more stocks than an analyst but will know about less stocks than a generalist salesman which is where I sit. You have trading who actually execute the trade, and then you have got sales traders who sit between the traders and the salesmen and they basically act as a facilitator for the client so I will speak to a fund manager at the client side, my sales trader will speak to their dealer and via a combination of myself, the sales trader and the trader, we can get the sale executed for the client.

What are the best bits about your job?

I love companies. I love talking about companies and get very excited about it, and I’m surprised I am not standing up at the moment because normally when I’m on the phone, I speak a lot with my hands and I do get very animated when I talk about companies. One of my initial bosses said to me, he said ‘You are basically talking to people who are your mates because you are talking to them everyday’, and I have spoken to some of my clients every day for the last eight years. The benefits of working at Merrill Lynch, who are a big bank, are pretty good - you are speaking about something that you find interesting, i.e. stocks you would be investing yourself even if you weren’t in banking, so I think that is probably the best thing.

What are the worst bits about your job?

Getting up at five is not the best, I must be honest, and it’s a long day and there is a lot is demanded of you. But I don’t think you get anything with a lot of responsibility unless you do have accountability on the other side, it is quid pro quo and I think that is accepted and expected from everyone that sits in my position. Standards are very high and you are continually being asked to be push harder and harder and being asked to do more, and that far outweighs the cost.  Yes,there are some mundane parts of admin; over the long term you can see where the admin leads to - for example when you are an account manager, there is a lot of box ticking that you have to go through for an account, but if you can take an account to a global number one broker, that is pretty exciting. And then you can see what the other side of that is, and the other side can be to land $100m or $200m trades, which is a rush for anyone.

Do you find it very stressful working with huge sums of money?

I personally don’t because I thrive on pressure and I think if you look at what would be a trait of someone who is good at my industry and good in banking, it would be that they thrive on pressure - and I have always been lucky in that sense that I do thrive on it. A lot of people would find it really stressful - you are at work for sixty or seventy hours a week, it is a long time. And the idea of a lunch hour does not happen in banking, you are just there and ‘on’ all the time and you are consistently being asked to do more and more - and I am lucky that I thrive on that pressure. Quite often you do make mistakes, we are only human, and I think one of the best things is how you learn from those mistakes, and how you would then approach that situation the next time it comes around. Because ultimately, we are still learning, and it still gets me excited about it. I’ve got one of my colleagues who sit next to me who has been doing this job for twenty years and he still gets excited about it because he is still learning. Yes, there is pressure, but I thrive on that rather than find it a hindrance.

What has been your greatest achievement?

I always remember back to when I started my career - I was at a smaller firm, Dresdner Kleinworts, and then moved over to Merrill Lynch after a few years there - and I remember the first time I got my first client and took them over the line on the first trade. It was only a small trade looking back, I think it was only about $5m trade which is very small in the context now - which slightly answers your earlier question about dealing with large numbers, they are big numbers and you are dealing with big clients - but I remember the first time I got a multi million dollar trade and that was definitely a stand-out moment. Moving to Merrill Lynch, is definitely the highlight of my career, I had always wanted to work at Merrill Lynch and I remember the first time I did a big trade at Merrill when I walked onto the trading floor; the trading floor at Merrill is the size of ten football pitches. It is pretty huge and it can be an intimidating place or you can really thrive off it and thrive off the energy that is there, and if you speak to the various people on various desks, that drives you forward, so it is probably the most important thing.

Interviewer: What does over the line mean?

Just taking a trade to its conclusion - so getting the trade done.

Any regrets?

This is going to sound very arrogant and trite but no, if I did do anything differently I probably wouldn’t be here today, and so everything I have done thus far has got me to where I am now. Yes, there are some mistakes I’ve made that I wouldn’t like to repeat, but also if I hadn't them maybe I wouldn’t have learned from them for the next time and the next occasions. So no, I would have done it exactly the same.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

The pay is competitive - very similar to what people would expect from a law firm or a top consultancy firm - and clearly you don’t work seventy hours a week unless you do get something back in return. There are a lot of benefits of working for a big organisation like Merrill Lynch - for example we have a gym on site, pension contributions and there are lots of flexible benefits that you get in the package, health insurance, medical insurance, etcetera.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

The working day is a long day, so I work basically from six to six, sometimes a bit later, sometimes a bit earlier. I have only been in the office past eight o’clock twice, so that is quite a good achievement especially if I look at some of my colleagues in investment banking - but they are very rarely in the office before nine a.m., I would hasten to add. Am I on call overnight and at weekends? I suppose yes, people can call me, but I am pretty diligent in that my free time is my free time. Merrill Lynch are supportive of that and they are keen to ensure you do have a work-life balance - because if you have worked for so long you do need your downtime, your rest time - but clearly there are times where you are required to be on call in the evenings. If we’ve got a big deal kicking off the next morning or there is a big trade happening with one of our clients, you don’t really thing of it as work, as a call on your time, you are just thinking of it as something you want to do and something you want to take further for your client’s interest and ultimately for your own. But I have never been in the office on a weekend and never been in the office past eight or nine at night.

Is there much in the way of travel?

In some of the sales roles there are, but I personally don’t because all of my clients are based in London. I have a lot of travel back for forward from the West End to the City to see a lot of clients - obviously a lot of the hedge funds are in the West End of London - but some of my colleagues, especially on the specialist sales side that just cover a sector, are always travelling around the world to see clients based in the US, clients in Japan and Asia, and a lot around Europe as well. One of my colleagues is on a two-week trip around Asia at the moment with a bunch of clients and a bunch of banks, so my air miler column is fairly light. But that is not to say we don’t travel at all, I have been over to our head office in New York a couple of times over the past twelve months, but in my day-to-day role there’s not that much travelling. But that’s not to say that if you do want to travel there isn’t the potential to do that as well.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

I think in investment banking you have to be in a big city because ultimately you need to be where the clients are, and clients are all in the city or the West End. You look in Scotland they are all in Edinburgh, you look in the States and most of them are in New York. Yes, there are some around the tracks and you have got some in Paris, but I would still class that as a big city. You’ve got very few outside the big cities but that’s not to say that flexible working is particularly frowned upon, a lot of people do work from home one day a week, especially a lot of mothers on the specialist sales desk. They work from home one day a week, and that is not frowned upon one bit, so you do have that option - but I think the chance of setting up a regional office in Hampshire is pretty low.

What is the working environment like?

Historically it has been seen as a male-dominated, stereotypical atmosphere - and it may well have been ten years ago. And even at my last company it was more stereotypical than at Merrill Lynch but now the atmosphere is very flexible. You’ve got the trading floor that I work on, which is as I say equivalent to ten football pitches which is a big office, and I think we have got six or seven hundred people working in one room - so it is hard to be formal when it that kind of atmosphere because it is constantly loud. You’ve got hundreds of people on the phone for twelve hours a day so it is going to be difficult for it to be like a library.

Yes, you are expected to wear suitable business attire, but I think this is the first time in about a week that I have had to put a tie on, so it’s not old-school stuffy.

My desk, the sales desk, which was traditionally a male dominated role, I think there are now about 50/50 girls verses boys. It is fair to say there are not that many people on the floor who are older than fifty-five but that is hopefully because they have made enough money that they are relaxing somewhere in the country. But the stereotype from a few years ago is completely out of the window, and it is open to absolutely anybody.

How did you get into your job?

I came into banking via doing an internship at my first company while in my second year at university. I thought; ‘I really want to get into banking, what is the best way to do it?’ and I had heard about these internships when I did my work experience when I was about fifteen or sixteen at another firm in the city. So I applied for about twenty-five or thirty internships. I had three interviews and got offered the three places, and at the time I got used to rejection pretty early. But I was fully expecting it to be very competitive and actually though ‘It’s worth putting in the effort now because hopefully if I get the internship I will then get the job that way’. I was lucky enough to get the internship at Dresdnor and then got offered a place on the graduate scheme for my final year at university. I also had the benefit of being sponsored at my final year at university, which is something I know Merrill Lynch offer as well. I started at Dresdnor and then I got headhunted over to Merrill Lynch and have been at Merrill for just over three years now. A good degree from a good university is a prerequisite, I believe a 2:1 is the required grade, which is what I got - so yes, you do need a degree but that is not to say we only hire people from Oxbridge or Harvard.

Are there any other ways into Banking?

There are back ways in and I know various people who have gone in at grassroots and worked their way up in a more front office role, but it’s fair to say that coming in to the front office is normally through a graduate scheme. Or, you’ve worked in the industry in accountancy or consultancy and then come in that way, to either to investment banking or to global markets. I know a lot of people that have done the accountancy exams, done the first three years at an accountancy firm and then moved over to banking that way. There are a lot of people who have worked in investment banking in particular who have worked in the industry for a long time because they actually know the industry and their knowledge is second to none. So yes, the graduate scheme is seen as the traditional route in but that is not to say it is the only route in.

What's the application process like?

The application process is to go on the Merrill Lynch website on the careers page where you will find the applications for the internships and the graduate placements, and then going down that route.

What are the key skills required for your job?

The key skills for my role - clearly someone who doesn’t need that much sleep, someone that can think on their feet quite quickly, someone that can take a lot of information in and disseminate it as quickly as possible. As I say my morning meeting can last up to an hour and I have already taken in about half an hour to forty-five minutes of data before that. The average sales call to clients is two minutes and how do you take half an hour’s information into a thirty-second to two-minute voicemail with a client? So that is one key skill.

The idea that you have to be very mathematical in any area in banking, I think is a myth. I am quite mathematical and good with numbers, but that doesn't mean to say you need to be an expert in calculus or anything like that to be good in banking. Clearly if you were working on the structured product desk or on a derivative desk, then yes, you do need to be good at maths, but there are roles for different skills. Being a salesman you just have to be a very good listener, you need to be able to get on with people - because ultimately your clients are people and you have to be able to have a rapport with them and you have to be able to take very complex subjects and explain them very succinctly and pretty clearly. I always liken it to whenever I interview graduates - I always ask them what degree they do and normally get back something like quantum physics, and then ask them to explain it to me as it they were speaking to their mother - because that is ultimately the best way to explain something complex. For example, a lot of the companies I talk about, do I actually know exactly what they do? No, but I can take a very complex idea and explain it very simply to my clients and that is why my clients like me.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

Top tip is selling yourself, you can take it as a given that anyone who sits inside of Merrill Lynch will be skilled and will be very good at their job otherwise they wouldn’t be there. But the key is, selling internally is just as valuable as selling externally. That doesn’t mean to say it is political - it is absolutely not and politics is very much frowned upon - but what is wrong with putting your hand up and saying: ‘I’ve done this well?’ And ultimately, that marks people out; if they are good at their job and can say they are good at their job, it becomes a vicious circle. They get the confidence to be better and they get the confidence to be better with their clients and better at selling to other people and they get the confidence to put their had up and say ‘I am good’ and that is what really marks people out.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

I know in global markets it’s a very flat structure, and investment banking is a much more structured process, about how you move to various levels and how long you have to be at various levels. I know at Merrill Lynch there is a ‘road map’ of how long you should be at each level, and when you can get promoted to each level. I just look at my career and the sales desks are very flat, at my desk there are fifteen people - I have one boss who is a Managing Director and he is Head of the European Sales Desk - but also on my desk, who are not my bosses, there are three other Managing Directors on my team and I think four or five Directors and a few VPs.

You will start as an Analyst, after a couple of years you will move to Associate and then up to Vice-President, Director and then ultimately President. I am twenty-eight and I am a director already so you can get there quite quickly. I started at twenty-one so I started as soon as I could, and I have managed to make the progress as quickly as is possible, but my goal is to be Managing Director by the time I’m thirty-one or thirty-two, and Merrill Lynch will absolutely give you the tools to get you there. If you want something they will try and help you to get there.

It is a very flat desk; the difference in the role is very subtle, it is the type of client you are talking to. I mentioned that I have spoken to some clients for eight years every day, and that might seem bizarre when you think the career progression I have made but you have got to remember the clients I am speaking to now may well have been the graduates eight years ago, so we will have progressed at the same rate. I look at my colleagues that have been doing this for longer than I and they may have spoken to clients for the last twenty years and it has been the same progression for them and their clients. Your client list is a very fluid thing and is churned 100% and will probably churn another 100% over the next couple of years, but my belief is, a good salesman is a good salesman and you are given a client to try and get the best out of and try and get the firm-to-firm relationship and take it as far as possible. Ultimately you’ve got a set of skills and you’ve got to apply those skills to the client, whoever that client may be - and yes, you do have to keep some clients and you get new clients, and then ultimately you have an account package and a client package that suits you and probably only you. So beyond that, where do I want to get to? I do want to run the Equities business in London - I think without goals you don’t get anywhere so you have to have goals - but as I say it is a very flat structure and anyone can stand out. I will regularly have conversations with the Head of the Equities in London, the Head of Trade and the Head of Sales Trading and as I say, I sit next to a guy who has been doing it for twenty years and we speak to the same clients and we cover for each other. So it is a very flat structure and is a very meritocratic, and success will be rewarded.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

With regards the career break, I know Merrill Lynch, as most City firms, offer a sabbatical after a certain amount of time at the firm, I don’t know if it is five years or ten years, but it is a long way off for me yet so I haven’t even looked at it in that much detail. There are people who have taken three months off and come back and thought: ’Actually, I quite enjoyed the three months off, I am going to leave completely,’ but then others have come back after three months completely reinvigorated by that break and they go on to better and greater things.

The reason for the sabbatical is a time for rest, because in this industry it is well-documented that people do move firms and move around quite a lot. Quite often when you move firms you get gardening leave - when I left my last firm to join Merrill Lynch I had a month off and I was twenty-five so that was quite exciting. So it has now been three years that I haven’t had a long holiday, which is a bit if a shame. So sabbaticals are important and they do reward loyalty because historically loyalty has not been rewarded in the City that well, but the values are change now and I think sabbaticals are one of those reason.

If I got to the point where I didn’t want to do this anymore and was looking at something else the skills are definitely transferable because selling is selling, so whether I am selling stocks or whether I am selling companies, I see it as exactly the same. It is trying to strike a rapport with the client and knowing what people want. There is always a place for people with City skills, i.e. market skills. In industry, a lot of Non-Executive and for that matter, Executive Directors at FTSE companies, were ex-salesmen, were ex-brokers, were ex-investment bankers - so there are a lot of transferable skills.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

There is a lot of information that has got to be distilled down to a couple of minutes every day, so we do read a lot of websites and papers and the ones to read are the FT - which isn't as dry as everyone thinks; The Economist - I must confess to flicking through it a couple of times a month at least; Barrens, which is an excellent US website; The Telegraph - always good for City information, as is the Times. The Wall Street Journal - which is the one that people in London tend to overlook and is a very dry read - but you often get useful information from there. The biggest source of information is Bloomberg - I have six computer screens in front of me and four of them are on Bloomberg and two on Bloomberg news permanently so there is constantly news flicking through. So you are never short of information but for someone who is not in the industry already, I think the best places to go are FT, CNBC and probably The Economist.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

If I wasn't doing this career, I think I would be sitting at home trading online. I would either be trading for myself or would be in consultancy, because a lot of the skills are fairly similar, but I think the opportunity to progress is a lot quicker in banking. As I said earlier it is very meritocratic and you will be rewarded for what you do rather than who you are, and I think that is why banking and ultimately being a salesperson is exactly where I should be.