What is it like to work a London office of one of the world’s biggest advisory firms? A FinBuzz guest writer shares her daily working routine.
It may look like I live in a fairy tale, but I worked hard to get it and don’t plan on slowing down any time soon. I have a degree from an American business school and moved to London right after studies. Recently I changed jobs and am very content.
Three months ago I started a position with a financial consultancy that works with corporate and central banks in Europe, as well as insurance companies.
8:45 AM
I wake up, brush my teeth, and leave the house. My commute to work only takes one minute. Literally. I live and work in the West End and I am very lucky that my office of 40 employees recently moved to the area. When I knew that the office was moving, I looked for a place in the same area.
9:00 AM
When I get to my desk, I start the day by making myself a cup of coffee and reading all the news in FT, Economist and other major publications, looking not only for general developments, but for news in my area of expertise as well. We work a lot with EU banks, including lots of Greek projects. So every single day I read articles on the front page that I later use in my work. It is an interesting feeling, because you have to adapt and change your strategies every day, depending on how things develop in Greece. I feel that what I am doing at the moment is at the epicentre of the financial world.
9:30 AM
We start gathering for a team meeting. We work in teams that are constantly changing, depending on projects. The minimum time you spend on one team is three months, and the maximum – one year.
Most of people in the office are from Europe, especially France and Greece. But we also have Italians, Germans, Chinese, Indians… everyone.
I like working in an international team like this, because we have local people who know culture and the language of Greece in our case, but we also have contributions from the other members, who have very fresh and diverse views.
All of us are global citizens: people from Greece who work here are not very typical Greeks, as well as people from Italy are not very typical Italians. They are more global Greeks, global Italians, etc. It seems as if we are all on the same wavelength, but each of us also contributes his/her own perks.
So we discuss plans for the day as a team. Usually we will have a conference call with a client and decide who prepares what.
I worked in a classic investment bank before. The business model there is traditional and you are not expected to develop quickly. All the projects that we do here are new and unique, no one has worked on anything identical before, so no one knows how exactly we approach it; there is no procedure. That’s why we feel like we are all in the same boat: senior members and people like me, who joined recently, are all welcome to put something on the table, to join the discussion, to share views and ideas. This is definitely my favourite part of everything I do workwise – discussing ideas with colleagues, brainstorming, finding a new way to do things.
11:00 AM
Conference call with a client. Last week I went on a business trip to Greece. I love meeting clients, because it effective to meet personally to discuss and agree on an action plan. So the conference call is more for a quick catch up.
12:30 PM
Lunchtime!
Before we had an office in the City, where everyone was in ‘office mode’ – in a rush, eating on the go, but here in the West End, when I go down to the street, sometimes I am the only one wearing a pencil skirt and a blouse. I mostly see glamorous women, men in golden Bentleys and Russian girls in cars covered with Swarovski. After being all drowned into the Greek crisis, I feel a little dissonance.
There are millions of cafes around and I can always find a healthy option. I sometimes eat at the desk when the project is time sensitive, but even then it is easy to find healthy food around and get it to go.
However usually I am not in a crazy rush and can sit down and have lunch with a colleague. I like having a hot meal, often meat or fish with vegetables.
1:30 PM
After lunch I usually do research or prepare presentations.
Since you are judged upon the result and not the hours spent in the office, you choose how you work and what you do.
This puts you under stress, because you know exactly what depends on you and you must be your own manager, you are responsible for what you do or don’t do, how the team performs, and for the end solution. But I’d say that it is a very healthy level of stress.
We have a modern open plan office, so I do not feel trapped. There is a lot of space for everyone to work and you can easily keep to yourself. I have two monitors, nothing personal on the desk, because it is all filled with printed material. I do print a lot, because I often need to discuss things with colleagues and it is so much faster to show them printed materials and work on it straight away.
At the end of the day I have send all the piles to the paper shredder, because it is all very confidential data.
6:00 PM
We order dinner with colleagues. Just recently, after I changed jobs, I began to realise that it is very important to work with people you enjoy to be around not only professionally, but also personally.
8:30 PM
Finish work and go to the gym, which is next door. I love running, so I run for about an hour. It helps me to recharge my brain. While at the gym, I keep my phone nearby so I can see any important emails or decide to go back to the office again.
9:30 PM
After I get home, I start thinking that it is time to get together with those I love, so I start making calls to family and friends.
But sometimes, when it’s Friday night, I go to Heathrow and jump on plane to get away for the weekend. I have friends all over, so I like travelling for a few days to see my friends and discover new places. Recently I went to Amsterdam, Milan, Berlin, but I also love spending weekends in London.
This story originally appeared in FinBuzz.
Photo: Allan Ajifo