In this episode, Anthony speaks with Victoria Bryan, Senior Vice President, Trade Performance and Analytics, Banking and Markets, Northern Trust, about how data analytics shapes trading decisions and drives performance on the trading floor.Victoria shares how she built a career at the intersection of data, markets, and communication, teaching herself to code, translating complex insights for stakeholders, and leading with curiosity and adaptability.It’s a candid look at one of the most impactful (and often overlooked) roles in finance, full of practical advice for anyone exploring data-driven careers or trying to stand out early in the industry.(00:00) Introduction to Data Analytics in Finance(01:24) Victoria Bryan's Journey: Education and Early Career(06:17) Understanding Northern Trust and Its Role(09:05) Navigating Career Challenges and University Selection(14:20) Mindset Shifts for Career Pivots(18:07) The Willingness to Learn and Personal Growth(21:52) The Role of Data Analytics in Trading Decisions(25:15) Essential Skills for Success(29:09) The Balance of Communication Skills(31:33) Building Confidence in Public Speaking(35:51) Navigating Imposter Syndrome(42:43) The Importance of Networking(46:16) Advice to My Younger Self
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to the series we've been running
throughout 2025 where I've been talking to a variety of women in
industry, everything from investor banking to trading for
private equity to portfolio management.
But this particular direction inthis conversation, we're going
to go somewhere a little bit different.
And that's what I'm super excited about because we're
(00:21):
going to dive into the role of data analytics in the world of
global financial markets. And there's also going to be
lots of tips for personal growth.
So whether you're applying to itfor an internship or perhaps
you're even in one at the moment, I know they're fully
under way right now. Or in your early career, there's
hopefully going to be lots of great suggestions to help you
(00:41):
reach your full potential. So to help me unpack this one
and provide some industry expertise, I'm really pleased to
be joined by Victoria Bryan, Senior Vice President in Trade
Performance and Analytics at Northern Trust.
So, Victoria, how are you? I'm really great.
Thank you so much for having me.I'm excited to be here.
I'm excited for the conversation.
(01:04):
Great. Well, look, with all of my
guests, I normally start with going back to when you were a
young person and typically from school to kind of put ourselves
in a bit of context as to what that journey's been like through
school, education, university and early career to your role
today. So perhaps we can start there.
(01:24):
Yeah, it's been a journey, I'll say that.
So growing up, I went to a lot of different places for my
education. I went to three primary schools,
3 secondary schools, two colleges and one university.
So we got a little bit more consistent as I got a little bit
older. But obviously moving around a
lot, that does make it a little bit challenging.
(01:45):
And as a result, I actually didn't have 3A levels to go to
university. So I had the equivalent of that
in newcast points, but I actually had 6A S levels and
only two A levels. So I went to university through
clearing. I didn't apply in the
traditional sense. And at that time I essentially
(02:07):
decided that I wanted to go somewhere else.
I grew up in Bournemouth, it's avery small town for those of you
that don't know, beach town in the South Coast.
Most people have been there on aholiday.
But growing up there there's nota huge amount of opportunities,
particularly in finance. So I just thought I need to go
somewhere else. So I'm going to get those
opportunities. So it was quite a last minute
(02:27):
decision on my part because I didn't think I was going to get
in to university without my 3A levels, given I only had two.
But I did get in and I decided that because I got in and I felt
really lucky to get in, I was going to do the best that I
could. So I was someone who very much
focused on the education part ofuniversity.
(02:48):
I think the socializing, the networking is still very
important and I'll talk a littlebit more about that.
But I actually got a first classdegree at university, but from
one of the worst universities according to the Times league
table. It's pretty low down there.
So again, it was like if I'm going to university without all
(03:08):
my A levels and I'm not going to, you know, the top tier one,
I need to try and get the best possible result.
So I got a first class degree and then I tried to apply for a
graduate program and I wasn't getting very much luck
initially. There are a few rejections.
I think other people can probably relate to that.
And I guess I got really bold atone point because I was so
(03:32):
frustrated with the rejection. So I went into an interview with
a consulting firm and essentially at the end of the
interview, he said, is there anything else you want to say?
And I said, I really want to work in finance.
This is like, I'm really passionate about this.
I really want to do this. So either you can hire me now
and I'm going to do a great job,or you can hire me in a year
when I come back with my master's degree and I'll just do
(03:53):
a great job then instead. But I didn't have a business, I
didn't have a finance degree. I had a business degree.
So I thought I'm not going to get my foot in the door here,
similar to how I thought I wasn't going to get into
university. I think, you know, I was talking
myself out of it, but also talking myself into it at the
same time. And he just turned around and
(04:13):
said, don't worry, you can save your money.
You're not going to need that master's degree.
And then I got a job on a graduate program.
It was two years in order to qualify under that scheme, under
that program. And then I moved from there to a
company that was a fintech firm.So my graduate scheme was a
consulting firm, but I was placed in Deutsche Berger, the
(04:35):
German Stock Exchange, for the entire three years that I was
with that organization. So it felt more like working for
Deutsche Berzer than actually being a consultant.
And then I moved to a company called Trade Informatics and
they essentially analyzed trading.
That's what the company providesas a service.
And I got that role because my friend essentially met a man on
(04:57):
an aeroplane. It was various sliding doors
moment and she got upgraded in araffle to business class on the
airplane. So even more good fortune in
that sense. Got talking to her neighbor.
He had a company that he had just opened the London office
for, but there was no actual boots on the ground in London
(05:17):
and he needed an analyst. And at the time I was a business
analyst. My friend actually isn't in this
industry so didn't know the difference between a business
analyst and a data analyst. She just said my friend's an
analyst, you should speak to her, she's great.
And then I ultimately got the role 7 interviews later.
It was not a easy peasy. Just get the job situation.
(05:39):
I had to go through the process the same way as anyone would.
Then I started that organization.
I very quickly became a directorof that company and I covered
all of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia in that role.
So within that job, I did that right up until I moved to
(06:01):
Northern Trust. And Northern Trusts were
actually my client when I was there.
So I was analysing their tradingand their trade performance from
the external seat. And then I ultimately moved into
the internal seat of doing that same role.
Perhaps just on that point, Northern Trust, could you just
explain a little bit more about who they are?
(06:22):
Because they're massive. But I, I, I feel like a lot of
students might not have heard ofthem or this concept of like a
custodian bank for a, for a terminology perspective.
So what? What is that?
So Northern Trust actually have their name on one of the
buildings in Canary Wharf. So one of those tall buildings,
if you go to Canary Wharf, you'll see Northern Trust just
(06:42):
as you come out of the tube station there.
So it is quite a big organization as you mentioned,
but most people aren't aware of it because custody is
essentially looking after people's assets.
So we have three main divisions.We have asset servicing, asset
management and wealth management.
Wealth management is essentiallylooking after ultra high net
(07:03):
worth individuals. So some of the richest people in
the world, billionaires, multi millionaires, they will ask us
to help them with wealth management and it's essentially
making sure they grow and maintain their wealth.
Asset servicing is looking afterpeople's assets.
What do you mean by assets? That's essentially stock in the
stock market. So buying shares in companies
(07:24):
like Amazon or Google or Apple, that would be stock.
Then you have fixed income, so that's bonds.
That's like government debt, forexample.
And then you have commodities. So that would be things like
gold, like physical assets, goldand oil.
And then you have cash is technically an asset as well, so
currency. So asset management is also not
(07:48):
the Division I work in, but it'sessentially managing a portfolio
of different assets. You have a benchmark that you're
trying to track, so you want to improve the value of those
assets by 5%. And then you have a team that
essentially work towards improving the asset value over
time by choosing different assets or a combination of
(08:09):
different assets to create a portfolio.
And then I work in asset servicing.
So it's essentially everything else in terms of servicing those
assets. Custody is like a bank account
for your stock. So instead of being for your
money, it's where you hold all of those assets.
So because we have this large custody business, we also do
(08:30):
other things within asset servicing like trading and
that's where the division in which I work in.
So if you want to buy or sell your assets, you could send the
instruction to the dealing desk here at Northern Trust and then
they can kind of buy and sell that in the market for you.
You can't just kind of go and buy these things yourselves.
If you are an organization, you have to do it through a third
(08:53):
party. Cool.
Yeah, that makes much more sensenow.
So hopefully people have got a good layer of the land because
going back then and to sort of start this conversation with the
early careers and the breaking into finance, because there
seems like there was a lot of challenges along this this road
that you've been on this journey.
One of those was you mentioned about the university was one of
(09:16):
the worst on the the times league tables.
So I think a lot of students certainly do panic about I don't
go to a target uni, like what amI going to do?
So how do you navigate that challenge?
And having gone through that process yourself successfully,
what advice would you give to someone who's in that situation?
(09:37):
They're reading all these headlines going AI has changed
applications, It's got more competitive.
I'm from a target uni now there's AI like it's it's always
a challenge. I guess the challenge is just
slightly different as times evolve.
But yeah. What advice could you give on
that? Yeah, I think I'll speak about
this from 2 lenses as someone who's hired people and has
(09:58):
someone working in my team that you know, isn't that far away
from when they graduated at thispoint, I'll speak from what I
felt at the time and then what Isee as a manager now.
So I think The thing is you needto equip yourself with
knowledge. So the first thing is try and
get the best possible outcome that you can from your degree.
If you can get that first class or that 21, then obviously
(10:21):
that's going to be very beneficial for you going
forward. But I will be very honest and
say the amount of knowledge thatI learned in my degree that I
actually use in my professional career right now is extremely
limited. I have a business management
degree and I analyze trading. There's very little overlap.
So a lot, a lot of the time the degree is giving you a
(10:42):
foundation that will take you into the professional workplace.
For me, when I was at university, it was about
understanding what employers arelooking for.
Listening to a podcast like thisis a great place to start.
Also, read the literature. If you are seeing the article
about AI, don't be panicked by it.
Read it so that you understand what the AI technology is
(11:03):
programmed to do. For example, I know that AI will
screen CVS to look for buzzwordsthat are linked to the job
description. So if you're going for an
analyst role and the word analyst is not in your CV or
analyzing or analysis or anything, something like that,
then you might get screened out.So just be aware of what the
technology is doing and try and make sure that you have the
(11:25):
understanding by where you can leverage the technology in your
favor. But also, now that I, I mean, I
told you about the interview andI think the reason I got the
role wasn't because I was exceptionally qualified because
I'd never worked in finance before.
I think it's because I was very passionate.
I'm very hard working. I was very passionate then.
I'm still very passionate now. And I think as a manager, that's
(11:48):
what I value actually more than the knowledge.
Because if I have someone that has exceptional knowledge, but
they have a very poor attitude or poor cultural fit for the
type of organization that we are, I they're probably not
going to get the role. So it's not just about those
qualifications that you have on paper, it's the bigger picture
of your qualifications combined with your general personality
(12:12):
and your general attitude as it comes to bringing that to work.
So although it is challenging not coming from a target
university and all coming from atarget university, because now
there's kind of the opposite effect of where we need more
diversity. So we can't just keep hiring
those top graduates, as you say,you know, from those
universities. So it depends on the
(12:34):
organization. Some people want those
graduates, some people don't. But I think there are so many
different organizations out there, particularly in finance
and in this space. You don't need to come with a
certain set of criteria because whatever you come to the table
with, there will be an organization where you'll be a
great fit. So I think just knowing that
(12:56):
trying to arm yourself and equipped yourself of the
knowledge to use the technology in your favour and just being
very passionate, having a good attitude, having a good energy,
like show up to your interview on time.
It sounds basic, but make sure that you go in there and you're,
you know, really enthusiastic about the role.
That will differentiate you fromothers as well.
(13:20):
Yeah, that that understanding the AI tools, that was really
cool actually, because I was just thinking about it.
It might seem very obvious to tosome, I think if you're
uncertain, because I, you know, I have the privilege now in my
position to go to LSE campus andImperial and these sorts of
places and they're all thinking in that way.
But I know when I went to Nottingham Trent, no one was
(13:41):
thinking in that way. So yeah, it sounds, yeah, really
interesting. Actually.
I could think of like taking a job description or requirements
and putting it almost like in a word cloud and thinking about
all the different words that you've got to hit that I'm sure
has to be genuine. You have the experience, but to
to understand the tech. Yeah, that's a really neat way
of, of thinking about it. Good on on the journey then.
(14:04):
So the career path doesn't soundparticularly linear, so to
speak, because there's been a few different shifts here.
You mentioned consulting analytics.
I know there's some other thingsas well that you've done over
the years probably prior to those jobs.
I just wondered then what's what's the biggest mindset sort
of shifts or actions that's helped make those pivots and I
(14:27):
guess ultimately into this one in analysis and data?
Yeah, I mean, when I was at university, I was an event
manager as my as my job. So it's very different from what
I do now and I absolutely love that job, but it wasn't what I
wanted to do as a career. So I think one thing is that
people when they know that they don't give everything, then
(14:49):
100%. But for me, I was still trying
to be the best possible event manager because you never know
who you're going to come across.That, like I said, sees that
positive energy, that good attitude and where the
opportunity may come from. My actual career journey has
been a little bit of luck mixed in with the skill set.
(15:12):
The skill set is important. You need to obviously have some
sort of knowledge in certain things, but it can also be
taught. The attitude element cannot be
taught. Having people that advocate for
you is something that isn't justa given.
So I think it's about making sure that even when you're not
in the direct career path that you want to be in or you're not
(15:32):
doing the direct job that you want to do.
Make sure that you're just putting it out there.
Whether it's just to your close friends or your family, where it
is that you do want to go and what it is that you do want to
do. Because I got my second role
that ultimately ended up linkingme to this one.
It was all because of my friend sitting next to a man on a
(15:53):
plane, as I mentioned already. So it's about having those
advocates that know what you want to do and where you want to
go and what path you want to take.
Obviously, in addition to that, you do need some sort of skills.
So I learned how to code in thatrole, for example, but I didn't
know how to code before going into the role.
So it's about either trying to get some, if you know you need
(16:16):
the skill, then try and do that skill.
There is a website called Code Academy along with many others
that offer free coding courses. So that's just one example of
many. By way, you just go onto the
Internet, your best resource, Google what skills it is that
you need, and there'll be something that you can do to
hone that skill. But also combine that with the
(16:38):
willingness. OK, I don't have the skill
today, but I'll learn it. Tell me how, tell me where to
go, tell me what to do. I will learn it.
And I walked into a role that was probably 50% coding, not
knowing how to code. So I do feel as though the
mindset shift is, I don't know how to do this today, but I'm
going to learn how to do it tomorrow.
(17:00):
And having that network, knowingwhat it is that you want to do
and knowing what it is that you are passionate about.
And then combining that with an understanding of what you are
interested in, I think a lot of people don't underestimate the
fact that when you are very interested in something, you are
(17:22):
more likely to get good at it. But if you are already good at
something and you have no interest in it, you're probably
going to stay always that level that you're at because you're
not motivated to necessarily be better.
So pick something that you're interested in.
And that would be the mindset shift, like make your career
(17:42):
work for your interests rather than just doing a career because
it sounds like a good idea. Yeah, I couldn't, couldn't agree
more. And yeah, that was really
interesting actually, about having people that advocate for
you. I never really thought about
that in terms of expressing yourdesires to those around you so
that, you know, fortune can. Hopefully you're just opening
(18:03):
the net for fortune to fall in your favour.
But I just wondered then this, this kind of willingness to
learn that motivation because I've often thought a lot of
students are competing on fairlylevel academic ground a lot of
the time. And so that appetite desire to
be motivated and curious and hungry.
So for you, there seems to be this current consistent theme of
(18:24):
willingness to learn. Like where's that come from?
Like, how do you get someone's going to listen to this and go
maybe like, OK, you know, so like for me at school, I was
quite disinterested at school, Imust admit.
But how how would you then present it to someone?
You know, you're a natural learner.
Let's say I'm, I'm not, I'm a natural, I'd say worker and I'm
(18:47):
good in that scenario. So like how yeah.
Where the how can you learn those skills to have that
appetite to learn? Or is it just finding that thing
that that subject matter? I think it's a bit of both.
I actually wasn't interested at school to be honest with you.
I was a little bit of a troublemaker at school as well,
(19:07):
but not because I was actually trouble but because I found
everything or certain lessons. I found maths for example, I
found it quite easy so I'd finish the worksheet and then
start distracting everyone just with chit chatting.
So nothing too untoward, but like I wasn't really that
focused in school. I never really would submit my
homework. I wouldn't say follow that
advice at all. I would say be focused.
(19:29):
But I think it just proves that I can be someone who, when I was
at school, on paper, people would have probably not assumed
that I would be in the seat thatI'm in now because I wasn't that
academic and I wasn't that focused.
And a lot of that, I think, was a byproduct of moving around so
much and then not quite settlinganywhere long enough to really
(19:50):
get stuck in on an academic front.
But I think it's about changing the mindset to every day you
learn. And I'm not just talking about
things that are academic. When I, I recently just went,
for example, on a trip and they have a transport system that
I've never used before. So in that situation, it sounds
(20:10):
very basic, but I learned something new because I'm now
learning the transport system ina different country.
And so I think people think learning is getting your books
out and getting your notebook and writing it, writing these
things down. But it can just be everyday life
experiences that you're more aware of in terms of this is an
experience that I just learned something from.
(20:31):
And when you start to realize that for me, the reason that I
enjoy learning is not because ofthe learning itself.
I just like to have the knowledge because I like to
connect with people. And the more that you understand
about things, whether that be the transport system or whether
that be data and analytics, you can create better connections
with people. And when you feel like you're
(20:51):
more connected with people, it can help you in terms of that
mindset because now we've got more group think, whether that's
about to travel, all the work. Now we can kind of work together
to get somewhere. It is challenging, but when you
feel like you're doing it with someone with a team, whether
that's a friend, it makes it a lot more enjoyable in terms of
(21:14):
that experience. So I would say that as someone
who maybe comes across as someone who is really good at
learning or really academic, it was actually the opposite until
I got to university. And what I decided at university
is I was going to get the most that I could out of it, but
you're only going to get that ifyou put the most into it.
So it was that mindset of I wantto get out what I put in, but
(21:35):
combined with like every opportunity as a learning
opportunity really. That's great.
There's, there's so much great practical advice coming out
here. We're, we're definitely going
to, I'm going to ask many more about personal growth and advice
and things like that. But perhaps for then just a bit
more detail about this data analytics part of, of markets
(21:57):
and how it connects to trading the impact of data.
I just wondered, could you walk me through how data analytics
influences capital markets trading decisions?
Like how does that all come together?
Yeah, sure. So I love an analogy, so I'm
just about to warn you that I'm about to use one.
So analytics in general is the process of collecting,
(22:19):
processing and analysing data, but not just the analysis.
The whole reason that you do that is to draw patterns and
insights out of the data to support future decision making.
So it's essentially the analyststaking that one step further
into analytics, which is now that I've got all of this data,
what can I do with it? What insights can I draw from
(22:41):
it? The way that I always describe
my job is I use analogy just because it makes it easier.
So if you wanted to go to a concert right now, let's say
that it's playing in Manchester and in Birmingham and in Cardiff
and in London, for example. So you've got all these
different places that you can goand see this particular concert,
(23:02):
but the concert sold out. So now you need to buy a ticket
and you need to buy a resale ticket.
So say the original price of theticket was 100 lbs, but now
you've gone onto these resale websites, there's lots of
different resale websites that you can go to.
So you need to decide, do I wantto go and see this in London and
Manchester and Birmingham or in Cardiff?
(23:23):
And then the prices of the tickets will be different in
each of those locations. And so say you make the decision
today that I'm going to go to this concert, but you don't buy
your ticket until tomorrow. The price difference between the
price today and the price tomorrow is probably moved.
So think about each of the concert locations as the venues
(23:44):
in the stock market, so London Stock Exchange, etcetera.
And then think about the decision of you making a ticket
the moment that you go and buy the stock from the stock market.
If I bought the ticket tomorrow and I paid 115 lbs, but I made
the decision I was going to buy the ticket today when it was 110
lbs, I paid £5 extra because I delayed my decision.
(24:06):
The analytics tells you that information.
So say Anthony, you paid extra £5 because you decided to wait
an extra day to buy your ticket.And then you do that essentially
over millions of data points over time.
So we trade a significant amount, the industry trades a
significant amount. So you can kind of analyze all
(24:27):
of that data and you can run an analysis that says, is this
always the case? So is it always better to buy
these things one day sooner? Would I've got a better price?
Would I've got a worse price? So we're essentially saying,
when was the decision made versus when did the purchase
take place? What is that difference?
And then is there always a consistent pattern behind the
(24:49):
difference? So that's how I can kind of
explain it in a simple form. The feedback then in terms of
how it influences the decision decisions is should you have
bought the ticket at Cardiff Stadium instead of London?
Should you have bought it the day before instead of the day
after? So that's the type of feedback
that we'll be giving to the clients and to the traders on
(25:11):
their trading decisions. So maybe I can ask now a bit
more about the essential skills.And actually as you're
explaining that last bit, I was thinking you mentioned your
Deutsche boss and you were doingmore like a consulting role and
it sounded there, you just said you have to manage multiple
stakeholders. So was there actually a pretty
neat transition of skill sets between consulting like business
(25:35):
analysts, finding out what people need, what their desires
are, what objectives are, and then actually now in the role
that you have with the multi layered nature of it?
So yeah, I just like to understand the technical and
non-technical skills for for what you do.
SO1 non-technical skill that forme personally is very
underrated, is presentation. Presentation for me is key.
(25:59):
And what I mean by that is it's how you take an incredibly
complex topic or subject and simplify it for the audience
that you're speaking to and and explain it in a way that they
will understand. Not just the presentation in
terms of your communication, written and verbal, that's also
important. But how do you present yourself
(26:21):
in the workplace? I've had people that I know of
or I'm aware of that have gone into internships and they're
turning up to the internship in trainers.
For a lot of organizations, that's fine.
For this particular organization, we are more of a
traditional corporate. So that probably won't leave the
best impression in that type of environment.
(26:44):
So I think it's about knowing your audience, whether that's
the employer that you're workingwith as an intern and or the
stakeholders that you're communicating with.
They say KYC know your customer.It's like know you're know
you're the person that you're interfacing off with and what
their expectation of you may be.Because people are far more
forgiving if you don't have the technical skills or you make a
(27:07):
mistake on that front. If they can see that you've put
your absolute best foot forward and that you're trying your
hardest. So that's one thing that I will
say, there's nothing wrong with wearing trainers in the office.
But if when you get there, everysingle person in the office is
100 people and no one's got trainers on, kind of have a look
around and think, OK, maybe I should not wear the trainers in
(27:29):
this office, this particular space.
So I think presentation is key in that regard, knowing who
you're speaking to. I always look at people's
Linkedins before I have a meeting with them so I know what
their job title is, their function is, particularly if
it's a client call because you might have 5 different people
doing 5 different jobs in the room.
So I think that is very underrated personally.
(27:51):
Those non-technical skills. The technical side, I mentioned
coding already. So I code mainly in the language
of Sequel. Python is more widely used I
would say, and the one that people are generally moving
towards. So understanding that is great.
We use data visualization tools as well.
So just understanding how to usethose.
(28:13):
They obviously are all different, like coding
languages, there are multiple and they are different data
visualization tools. There are multiple and they are
all different. But if you understand the
concept of what they are, what they're doing, and the baseline
of what the language is trying to achieve, you can generally
pivot from one to the other without it being a significant
lift. So those are the other more
(28:34):
technical skills that I would say.
It may sound like a math C role because it's analytics, but a
lot of the actual maths is already provided and the data
comes through a platform that's already calculated.
So my job is to take that information and disseminate it
in a way that's easy to interpret and understand for
(28:55):
whoever the audience is. So it's about being able to look
at patterns in large data sets, which is not really something
you can teach, it's something that you just need to practice
over time as well. And can I just ask what's the
balance between kind of written and oral, kind of delivery of
the analysis, if you like, in terms of when thinking of
(29:17):
skills, They're quite two different things.
Being able to write well and understand your audience and the
time frames, particularly on thetrading floor when time is of
the essence often and they need very concise, impactful,
informative information. And then the audio, the verbal
side of relaying that as well asa different skill.
(29:38):
So what's the balance of that for you?
I would say that it would depend.
It depends upon your seat and itdepends upon how client facing
your role is. For me specifically, I'm pretty
client facing in my role and I would say that the written
communication happens a little bit more internally because
everyone understands the data more already.
(30:00):
So you don't have to give as much of an explanation, but
externally ticked, if it's a newer client, we will always
have that FaceTime in terms of explaining the information that
they're looking at. What you don't want,
particularly in trading, is for someone to look at the analysis
and see a red number and say, Ohmy gosh, terrible.
Because a lot of the time the red number actually doesn't mean
(30:20):
something bad. So you need someone to sit there
and say these are what these numbers mean and this is how to
read and interpret this information.
Once you've kind of done that a few times, generally people get
very comfortable with it and then you don't, you can send
them the presentation. You don't necessarily need to go
through to the same detail in terms of the the presentation
(30:44):
that would be overall. You can just kind of send it in
an e-mail, but it's definitely alot more upfront oral
communication because people will not understand the
information if you just deliver it to them, I would say 9 times
out of 10. So you want to have that preface
before they just kind of jump tomaybe the wrong conclusion on
the information that you're giving them?
(31:05):
So that the visualization I haveat the moment and of this client
side interaction and demystifying almost the numbers
on the page to make it understandable for someone a lot
of public speaking and I know talking to a lot of students,
this makes them highly anxious. Just people could be naturally
anxious. I think a lot of people had the
(31:26):
COVID situation who are now joining the workforce where
there wasn't a lot of human interaction full stop.
So as someone yourself who who does this as a job and does it
well, what advice can you give to someone who to start building
confidence and practical steps to be able to master that skill?
(31:47):
When I first got to Northern Trust, I got invited to a
conference and my boss said, do you want to go to this
conference? I said, yeah, sure.
I mean, he said there's one catch.
And I said, what is it? And he said, you need to speak
on a panel at the conference. And internally I freaked out and
I said, not sure if I want to dothat.
(32:07):
I'm going to come back to you. So I actually didn't say
immediately, yes, because I had that nervousness around.
Is this something that I can do?But I think the one thing is if
someone is asking you to do something, typically if they're
your manager or their senior, they obviously believe that you
can do it because they would notnominate you, particularly in a
(32:29):
situation where you're representing the company if they
didn't think that you were goingto represent the company well.
So that's one thing. The other thing is I did the
conference and everyone said great job, good, well done.
But me, I still had that voice of I don't know if I'm as good
(32:49):
as this as people think. Like internally I felt very
scared, very nervous. I had an Apple Watch at the
time. My heart rate was like racing
the whole time. And I'm thinking, everyone's
saying I'm great, but I don't feel necessarily that way.
And so I mentioned this internally and I actually ended
up being advised to get a speaking coach.
(33:12):
So if you're somebody who wants to do speaking in a more public
forum, I would definitely recommend getting professional
help if you feel like you need it, getting someone who does
this. The lady that actually helped me
used to be a broadcaster and a news anchor.
So she was very much used to that and she gave me really,
(33:33):
really good practical tips and advice for how to improve the
public speaking. So I would say for anyone that
does feel like they need that little bit of polishing, that's
fine. Get the help if you need it.
And the other thing is when I first started publicly speaking,
I had already been speaking a lot in terms of presenting
(33:56):
because I would present to clients in my job.
So it's about realizing that there are moments where you may
already be doing that within therole that you have.
Even if it's just presenting an idea that you have to your
manager and it's a one-on-one interaction, that's still you
presenting something. And so take the skills that you
(34:17):
learn from those situations and then hone them in and kind of
scale them up as you do more andmore speaking or speaking that's
a little bit more public or outside of your comfort zone.
So I would definitely say that the speech coach helped.
I will say that the speech coachafter the session said, I don't
(34:40):
really know what to tell you. Pause a bit more and that's
probably about it. So I feel like maybe it was an
internal dialogue and a little bit of an insecurity more so
than actually how it was presenting to others.
But even though that was the case, it gave me more confidence
that I wouldn't have otherwise had if I didn't have the coach.
(35:01):
So I would definitely say that that's an option for people.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we, we have elocution
coaches that come in for our training team for their, their
public sessions and things like that.
And yeah, there's one called theelocution coach if you're based
in the UK and they do free workshops all the time.
So if you're a student, I would definitely go and do it.
(35:21):
And they all come from an actingkind of drama background.
So it's really fun, super engaging and, and yeah, it's
helps immensely for our, for ourteam.
And there's also Toastmasters aswell that I know exist.
I have heard of that one as well.
Yeah. So there's stuff out there you
just got to get yourself involved and you know, it's
good, good for networking and meeting new people as well.
But you mentioned there perhaps though you had these skills and
(35:45):
actually it was more of a mental1.
And I just wondered. That leads me to my next kind of
question about more about experiences of your your
personal journey of impostor syndrome.
You know, you being a woman, youbeing black, you being, you
know, these different things that are not traditionally part
(36:05):
of. What?
What I guess makes up a large subset of of what this industry
looks like. And I just wondered, you know,
what's that experience been likefor you and, and, and, you know,
has there been challenges and ifso, have you overcome them?
I'd say that yes, there's challenges.
(36:27):
I still feel impostor syndrome all the time.
Like, why did you ask me to do this podcast?
It's not a thought that did not cross my mind before coming here
to speak to you. So I think that is an ongoing
thing. And I also feel like most people
to some extent have it. I remember I asked a very, very
senior leader who I really respected a lot and appreciated
(36:49):
a lot how they deal with public speaking.
Just going back to that last point and they said I still get
nervous every single time and I still like why they asking me to
speak sometimes. And that's someone who doesn't
have those certain things that you just mentioned there in
terms of he is a white male who's older, in his late 50s,
(37:11):
early 60s, who is really established and still feels that
way. So I don't think it's bad.
And one thing that he said to me, which really sticks to me is
if you didn't feel that way, then you probably don't care.
Like if you're not having that internal dialogue and if you're
not having that kind of little bit of pressure that you put on
yourself, it may be that you're not that interested.
So he kind of said, don't see itas a bad thing, but what you
(37:35):
don't want is your imposter syndrome to stop you from doing
things. So as much as I have that self
doubt, I'm still sitting here having this conversation with
you as a good example of where Idon't allow the internal
dialogue to hold me back. And any moment where I do have
those, you know, any time I havethose moments where I think I'm
(37:56):
might get into a space where I'mlike, oh, I don't know if I can
do this. And second guessing myself.
I actually, and it may sound really silly, but I think it's
really good advice. I actually write positive
feedback that I get, particularly when it's written
into a note on my laptop. Anytime I have an annual review
and you know, something really nice is written down there, I'll
(38:18):
take that. I'll put it in a note so that
when I have those moments and I'm doubting myself, I go back
to that note because that note is not my internal dialogue.
That's actually what people haveseen in the work that I've
produced and in what I've done. So I would recommend
particularly young people, as weird as it may feel initially,
to kind of write things that arereally positive about yourself
(38:40):
that other people are saying in a note.
It is the truth. And I think when you're not
writing it down or when you're not reminding yourself, that's
when you get stuck sometimes in that little bit of self doubt.
So even though it may seem a little strange, it definitely
does work as you mentioned that I have like the
(39:00):
intersectionality between race and between gender.
And I'm also earlier on in my career, as in, you know, I'm a
little bit younger, so, and there's always that thing of
when you're walking into the room, are they going to take me
seriously? And I've had experiences where
people have not shaken my hand as I've gone into the meeting
(39:21):
room with them. And so it doesn't help then with
the imposter syndrome and the self doubt.
And I think that when those things happen, you need to focus
more on the note that you wrote to yourself with all the
positive feedback that people said, and not that one
interaction or that one experience.
Because I would love to sit hereand promise you that that will
(39:43):
never happen and you'll never feel that way.
But the chances are that you might at one time or another
feel, you know, confused or or maybe like you're not good
enough or you don't understand why things are happening a
certain way. But I think that it's one of
those things where you have to make sure you're focusing on all
the people that advocate for youand that all the people that
(40:05):
believe in you. And not necessarily paying
attention to the opposite. Just one more thing I want to
mention is I actually wrote my dissertation in university on
ethnic minority women achieving leadership roles in finance and
that's probably the one thing that I've carried with me in my
career from university to now. So I wrote that dissertation in
(40:28):
2015 and it really helped me with the tools that I needed.
First of all, the understanding that this is not a unique
problem to me. Everyone feels this self doubt
and imposter syndrome, but also how do you overcome it?
There are certain tools. One of them is, unfortunately,
you've got to work a little bit harder, you've got to be a
little bit smarter. But the main one was having a
(40:49):
good network of people. So when I say about my friends
that advocated for me, I've alsobeen a mentor.
I've had mentors and just havingthose relationships with people
really helps you to grow as a professional, but also it can
help with some of these things. I remember one person senior
that I respect a lot told me I have impossibly high standards.
(41:13):
And so having someone say that you're kind of like, OK, well,
what I'm probably aiming for is not realistic.
And then that helps as well. And another thing that someone
has said to me is I remember I had like, some sort of illness,
I don't remember what it was like something like strep throat
or something. And I'd gone into work and I
(41:34):
wasn't at 100%. And I apologize to my boss for
saying, oh, you know, I'm sorry,I'm not 100%.
I'm just still like trying to recover from this illness.
And he said you're 80% is still significantly better than other
people's 100%. So don't worry about it.
And that's the message that I keep telling myself every time I
feel like I'm falling short of the 100 because it happens.
(41:55):
We're not robots. You are going to have your good
days and your bad days. But just reminding yourself that
that's how people see you, I think is really good in that
sense. You mentioned networking there
being quite crucial actually in order to to lift oneself in
terms of your aspirations and your career.
(42:16):
So how do how do you do that? Like how do you go about like
fostering this particularly, youknow, someone like, you know,
myself coming from a working class background, I don't really
have a lot of friends. I was growing up whose parents
are professionals, things like that.
So how do you have that mindset?But more practically, how do you
do that? And even in your early career,
(42:36):
when you're at university, what can what can our listeners be
doing to cultivate those relationships?
Yeah, it's a difficult one. People don't generally believe
me when I say this, but I'm a very introverted and I feel like
I'm a little bit of a socially awkward person.
I know it doesn't come off that way and people be like, no way,
but I do really before interacting with people, I
(42:58):
really do think about it a lot. And then after the interaction
I'm like, oh, how did that go? And I will replay it.
So I am one of these people thatdoesn't come, networking doesn't
come very naturally to me. So it's something that I have to
make a conscious effort to do. 1thing that I will say is having
(43:20):
spoken to people in a way that'sslightly more candid and
vulnerable, like how I'm speaking to you in this podcast,
you learn that a lot of people do feel exactly the same way.
So you're in a room full of people and I would say, you
know, maybe 50% of them, if not more, are kind of thinking all
this is a little bit awkward andI don't really know what to do
and say. And I think the earlier you are
(43:40):
in your journey, the more likelythat that is more the case
amongst the room that you're in.So just know that and don't feel
like you're alone in that feeling.
One thing that works really wellfor me is sometimes your network
can be from people advocating for you.
As I've already mentioned a few different times, the network
(44:00):
doesn't have to directly be you going to a cocktail thing where
you're having drinks and you're saying hello to people.
It could just be that people areaware of you and then they tell
other people about you or your skills and your network can just
be like a word of mouth thing. If you want to elevate it that
little bit more, you can go to those networking events, but
just go with a friend, go with someone that you do feel
(44:23):
comfortable with and then kind of challenge each other.
OK, that person looks like they're a little bit lost.
We're going to go and speak to them and say hello and there
will be someone in the room that's looking like that.
So that's the other thing that Iwould say go with someone if you
feel really uncomfortable with networking.
And then the final thing is likefind common ground with people.
(44:45):
One thing that I generally find common ground with people on
very quickly as travelling, where are you going?
Where have you been? And then you can kind of have
that conversation about that or it could be about your goals.
Tell me something interesting that you're working on right
now. Great question for networking
(45:05):
rather than just hi, how are you?
What do you do? Like tell me an interesting
project that you're working on. Tell me what you want to get out
of this networking, like what brings you here.
Try and avoid the more cliche questions and you'll very
quickly find common ground with someone.
I think that way. And it doesn't have to always be
super professional. Let the conversation drift.
(45:26):
One thing that I was not very good at in my socially more
socially awkward phase the now is having a conversation that's
very organic. I was a little bit robotic of so
what's your name and what do youdo and whereabouts is that?
And it was very just like very fact finding type.
It's not an interview. It shouldn't be a conversation
(45:48):
and back and forth. So just try and have a chat
about something unrelated to thereason that you're there if
that's what you feel comfortablewith.
All right. Well, it it leads me to my final
question and it's a question that I have asked all of our
guests so far, which is kind of retrospectively looking back at
(46:09):
your younger self, if there's one piece of advice you could
give that Victoria, what would it be?
It's a difficult one because I feel as though, and I did think
about this, like, what would I say to my younger self?
And I feel as though it would bewhen you're younger, you want to
(46:32):
fit in and you want to have network of people where you're
fitting in and sometimes someonethat went to, you know, 6
different slash primary slash high schools.
I was always trying to reinvent myself in every new school based
on what I thought people liked and what I thought people would
want to be friends with. And I would say actually fitting
(46:56):
in when you get older is quite the opposite of what you want.
You want to actually stand out. So I think I would tell my
younger self that you may not necessarily fit in at the
moment, but this is going to be something that will kind of be
your superpower as you go into adulthood in the professional
workplace. So it is better to stand out.
(47:16):
And I know that's a little bit cliche, but it is the case.
And particularly in somewhere like London, there's so many
people here. You'll find your people, you'll
find your network. So instead of trying to make
yourself fit in a place that maybe isn't for you, make find
the place that is for you instead, because you're always
going to feel like you're not quite good enough if you're in
(47:40):
the wrong circles. They always say that if you ask
A, there's a saying something about if you ask a oh gosh, I
have to remember what it is. There's a saying about if you
ask a fish to climb a tree, the fish is going to feel like a
failure. But if you ask the fish to swim,
(48:03):
then it will feel like a success.
So if you're in the wrong circle, you might feel like that
fish trying to climb that tree. All right, that you said that
you liked analogies, so we'll finish on on the fish analogy.
And but look, honestly, that wassuch a, a really interesting
conversation both from, you know, your openness to speak
about your journey to the practicality or, or you know,
(48:26):
some really useful steps there, I think to follow on those,
those bits of advice. And what I will do is I'll put
chapters. So wherever you listen or watch
this episode, I'll chapterize the conversation.
So definitely you should, you know, go in and have a look at
what parts, if not everything that will be useful for you.
But Victoria, thank you so much for all of your time and your
insights and your openness. Really appreciate it.
(48:48):
And yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for loving me.
I've really enjoyed speaking with you today.
Hello, and welcome back to the series we've been running
throughout 2025 where I've been talking to a variety of women in
industry, everything from investor banking to trading for
private equity to portfolio management.
But this particular direction inthis conversation, we're going
to go somewhere a little bit different.
And that's what I'm super excited about because we're
(00:21):
going to dive into the role of data analytics in the world of
global financial markets. And there's also going to be
lots of tips for personal growth.
So whether you're applying to itfor an internship or perhaps
you're even in one at the moment, I know they're fully
under way right now. Or in your early career, there's
hopefully going to be lots of great suggestions to help you
(00:41):
reach your full potential. So to help me unpack this one
and provide some industry expertise, I'm really pleased to
be joined by Victoria Bryan, Senior Vice President in Trade
Performance and Analytics at Northern Trust.
So, Victoria, how are you? I'm really great.
Thank you so much for having me.I'm excited to be here.
I'm excited for the conversation.
(01:04):
Great. Well, look, with all of my
guests, I normally start with going back to when you were a
young person and typically from school to kind of put ourselves
in a bit of context as to what that journey's been like through
school, education, university and early career to your role
today. So perhaps we can start there.
(01:24):
Yeah, it's been a journey, I'll say that.
So growing up, I went to a lot of different places for my
education. I went to three primary schools,
3 secondary schools, two colleges and one university.
So we got a little bit more consistent as I got a little bit
older. But obviously moving around a
lot, that does make it a little bit challenging.
(01:45):
And as a result, I actually didn't have 3A levels to go to
university. So I had the equivalent of that
in newcast points, but I actually had 6A S levels and
only two A levels. So I went to university through
clearing. I didn't apply in the
traditional sense. And at that time I essentially
(02:07):
decided that I wanted to go somewhere else.
I grew up in Bournemouth, it's avery small town for those of you
that don't know, beach town in the South Coast.
Most people have been there on aholiday.
But growing up there there's nota huge amount of opportunities,
particularly in finance. So I just thought I need to go
somewhere else. So I'm going to get those
opportunities. So it was quite a last minute
(02:27):
decision on my part because I didn't think I was going to get
in to university without my 3A levels, given I only had two.
But I did get in and I decided that because I got in and I felt
really lucky to get in, I was going to do the best that I
could. So I was someone who very much
focused on the education part ofuniversity.
(02:48):
I think the socializing, the networking is still very
important and I'll talk a littlebit more about that.
But I actually got a first classdegree at university, but from
one of the worst universities according to the Times league
table. It's pretty low down there.
So again, it was like if I'm going to university without all
(03:08):
my A levels and I'm not going to, you know, the top tier one,
I need to try and get the best possible result.
So I got a first class degree and then I tried to apply for a
graduate program and I wasn't getting very much luck
initially. There are a few rejections.
I think other people can probably relate to that.
And I guess I got really bold atone point because I was so
(03:32):
frustrated with the rejection. So I went into an interview with
a consulting firm and essentially at the end of the
interview, he said, is there anything else you want to say?
And I said, I really want to work in finance.
This is like, I'm really passionate about this.
I really want to do this. So either you can hire me now
and I'm going to do a great job,or you can hire me in a year
when I come back with my master's degree and I'll just do
(03:53):
a great job then instead. But I didn't have a business, I
didn't have a finance degree. I had a business degree.
So I thought I'm not going to get my foot in the door here,
similar to how I thought I wasn't going to get into
university. I think, you know, I was talking
myself out of it, but also talking myself into it at the
same time. And he just turned around and
(04:13):
said, don't worry, you can save your money.
You're not going to need that master's degree.
And then I got a job on a graduate program.
It was two years in order to qualify under that scheme, under
that program. And then I moved from there to a
company that was a fintech firm.So my graduate scheme was a
consulting firm, but I was placed in Deutsche Berger, the
(04:35):
German Stock Exchange, for the entire three years that I was
with that organization. So it felt more like working for
Deutsche Berzer than actually being a consultant.
And then I moved to a company called Trade Informatics and
they essentially analyzed trading.
That's what the company providesas a service.
And I got that role because my friend essentially met a man on
(04:57):
an aeroplane. It was various sliding doors
moment and she got upgraded in araffle to business class on the
airplane. So even more good fortune in
that sense. Got talking to her neighbor.
He had a company that he had just opened the London office
for, but there was no actual boots on the ground in London
(05:17):
and he needed an analyst. And at the time I was a business
analyst. My friend actually isn't in this
industry so didn't know the difference between a business
analyst and a data analyst. She just said my friend's an
analyst, you should speak to her, she's great.
And then I ultimately got the role 7 interviews later.
It was not a easy peasy. Just get the job situation.
(05:39):
I had to go through the process the same way as anyone would.
Then I started that organization.
I very quickly became a directorof that company and I covered
all of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia in that role.
So within that job, I did that right up until I moved to
(06:01):
Northern Trust. And Northern Trusts were
actually my client when I was there.
So I was analysing their tradingand their trade performance from
the external seat. And then I ultimately moved into
the internal seat of doing that same role.
Perhaps just on that point, Northern Trust, could you just
explain a little bit more about who they are?
(06:22):
Because they're massive. But I, I, I feel like a lot of
students might not have heard ofthem or this concept of like a
custodian bank for a, for a terminology perspective.
So what? What is that?
So Northern Trust actually have their name on one of the
buildings in Canary Wharf. So one of those tall buildings,
if you go to Canary Wharf, you'll see Northern Trust just
(06:42):
as you come out of the tube station there.
So it is quite a big organization as you mentioned,
but most people aren't aware of it because custody is
essentially looking after people's assets.
So we have three main divisions.We have asset servicing, asset
management and wealth management.
Wealth management is essentiallylooking after ultra high net
(07:03):
worth individuals. So some of the richest people in
the world, billionaires, multi millionaires, they will ask us
to help them with wealth management and it's essentially
making sure they grow and maintain their wealth.
Asset servicing is looking afterpeople's assets.
What do you mean by assets? That's essentially stock in the
stock market. So buying shares in companies
(07:24):
like Amazon or Google or Apple, that would be stock.
Then you have fixed income, so that's bonds.
That's like government debt, forexample.
And then you have commodities. So that would be things like
gold, like physical assets, goldand oil.
And then you have cash is technically an asset as well, so
currency. So asset management is also not
(07:48):
the Division I work in, but it'sessentially managing a portfolio
of different assets. You have a benchmark that you're
trying to track, so you want to improve the value of those
assets by 5%. And then you have a team that
essentially work towards improving the asset value over
time by choosing different assets or a combination of
(08:09):
different assets to create a portfolio.
And then I work in asset servicing.
So it's essentially everything else in terms of servicing those
assets. Custody is like a bank account
for your stock. So instead of being for your
money, it's where you hold all of those assets.
So because we have this large custody business, we also do
(08:30):
other things within asset servicing like trading and
that's where the division in which I work in.
So if you want to buy or sell your assets, you could send the
instruction to the dealing desk here at Northern Trust and then
they can kind of buy and sell that in the market for you.
You can't just kind of go and buy these things yourselves.
If you are an organization, you have to do it through a third
(08:53):
party. Cool.
Yeah, that makes much more sensenow.
So hopefully people have got a good layer of the land because
going back then and to sort of start this conversation with the
early careers and the breaking into finance, because there
seems like there was a lot of challenges along this this road
that you've been on this journey.
One of those was you mentioned about the university was one of
(09:16):
the worst on the the times league tables.
So I think a lot of students certainly do panic about I don't
go to a target uni, like what amI going to do?
So how do you navigate that challenge?
And having gone through that process yourself successfully,
what advice would you give to someone who's in that situation?
(09:37):
They're reading all these headlines going AI has changed
applications, It's got more competitive.
I'm from a target uni now there's AI like it's it's always
a challenge. I guess the challenge is just
slightly different as times evolve.
But yeah. What advice could you give on
that? Yeah, I think I'll speak about
this from 2 lenses as someone who's hired people and has
(09:58):
someone working in my team that you know, isn't that far away
from when they graduated at thispoint, I'll speak from what I
felt at the time and then what Isee as a manager now.
So I think The thing is you needto equip yourself with
knowledge. So the first thing is try and
get the best possible outcome that you can from your degree.
If you can get that first class or that 21, then obviously
(10:21):
that's going to be very beneficial for you going
forward. But I will be very honest and
say the amount of knowledge thatI learned in my degree that I
actually use in my professional career right now is extremely
limited. I have a business management
degree and I analyze trading. There's very little overlap.
So a lot, a lot of the time the degree is giving you a
(10:42):
foundation that will take you into the professional workplace.
For me, when I was at university, it was about
understanding what employers arelooking for.
Listening to a podcast like thisis a great place to start.
Also, read the literature. If you are seeing the article
about AI, don't be panicked by it.
Read it so that you understand what the AI technology is
(11:03):
programmed to do. For example, I know that AI will
screen CVS to look for buzzwordsthat are linked to the job
description. So if you're going for an
analyst role and the word analyst is not in your CV or
analyzing or analysis or anything, something like that,
then you might get screened out.So just be aware of what the
technology is doing and try and make sure that you have the
(11:25):
understanding by where you can leverage the technology in your
favor. But also, now that I, I mean, I
told you about the interview andI think the reason I got the
role wasn't because I was exceptionally qualified because
I'd never worked in finance before.
I think it's because I was very passionate.
I'm very hard working. I was very passionate then.
I'm still very passionate now. And I think as a manager, that's
(11:48):
what I value actually more than the knowledge.
Because if I have someone that has exceptional knowledge, but
they have a very poor attitude or poor cultural fit for the
type of organization that we are, I they're probably not
going to get the role. So it's not just about those
qualifications that you have on paper, it's the bigger picture
of your qualifications combined with your general personality
(12:12):
and your general attitude as it comes to bringing that to work.
So although it is challenging not coming from a target
university and all coming from atarget university, because now
there's kind of the opposite effect of where we need more
diversity. So we can't just keep hiring
those top graduates, as you say,you know, from those
universities. So it depends on the
(12:34):
organization. Some people want those
graduates, some people don't. But I think there are so many
different organizations out there, particularly in finance
and in this space. You don't need to come with a
certain set of criteria because whatever you come to the table
with, there will be an organization where you'll be a
great fit. So I think just knowing that
(12:56):
trying to arm yourself and equipped yourself of the
knowledge to use the technology in your favour and just being
very passionate, having a good attitude, having a good energy,
like show up to your interview on time.
It sounds basic, but make sure that you go in there and you're,
you know, really enthusiastic about the role.
That will differentiate you fromothers as well.
(13:20):
Yeah, that that understanding the AI tools, that was really
cool actually, because I was just thinking about it.
It might seem very obvious to tosome, I think if you're
uncertain, because I, you know, I have the privilege now in my
position to go to LSE campus andImperial and these sorts of
places and they're all thinking in that way.
But I know when I went to Nottingham Trent, no one was
(13:41):
thinking in that way. So yeah, it sounds, yeah, really
interesting. Actually.
I could think of like taking a job description or requirements
and putting it almost like in a word cloud and thinking about
all the different words that you've got to hit that I'm sure
has to be genuine. You have the experience, but to
to understand the tech. Yeah, that's a really neat way
of, of thinking about it. Good on on the journey then.
(14:04):
So the career path doesn't soundparticularly linear, so to
speak, because there's been a few different shifts here.
You mentioned consulting analytics.
I know there's some other thingsas well that you've done over
the years probably prior to those jobs.
I just wondered then what's what's the biggest mindset sort
of shifts or actions that's helped make those pivots and I
(14:27):
guess ultimately into this one in analysis and data?
Yeah, I mean, when I was at university, I was an event
manager as my as my job. So it's very different from what
I do now and I absolutely love that job, but it wasn't what I
wanted to do as a career. So I think one thing is that
people when they know that they don't give everything, then
(14:49):
100%. But for me, I was still trying
to be the best possible event manager because you never know
who you're going to come across.That, like I said, sees that
positive energy, that good attitude and where the
opportunity may come from. My actual career journey has
been a little bit of luck mixed in with the skill set.
(15:12):
The skill set is important. You need to obviously have some
sort of knowledge in certain things, but it can also be
taught. The attitude element cannot be
taught. Having people that advocate for
you is something that isn't justa given.
So I think it's about making sure that even when you're not
in the direct career path that you want to be in or you're not
(15:32):
doing the direct job that you want to do.
Make sure that you're just putting it out there.
Whether it's just to your close friends or your family, where it
is that you do want to go and what it is that you do want to
do. Because I got my second role
that ultimately ended up linkingme to this one.
It was all because of my friend sitting next to a man on a
(15:53):
plane, as I mentioned already. So it's about having those
advocates that know what you want to do and where you want to
go and what path you want to take.
Obviously, in addition to that, you do need some sort of skills.
So I learned how to code in thatrole, for example, but I didn't
know how to code before going into the role.
So it's about either trying to get some, if you know you need
(16:16):
the skill, then try and do that skill.
There is a website called Code Academy along with many others
that offer free coding courses. So that's just one example of
many. By way, you just go onto the
Internet, your best resource, Google what skills it is that
you need, and there'll be something that you can do to
hone that skill. But also combine that with the
(16:38):
willingness. OK, I don't have the skill
today, but I'll learn it. Tell me how, tell me where to
go, tell me what to do. I will learn it.
And I walked into a role that was probably 50% coding, not
knowing how to code. So I do feel as though the
mindset shift is, I don't know how to do this today, but I'm
going to learn how to do it tomorrow.
(17:00):
And having that network, knowingwhat it is that you want to do
and knowing what it is that you are passionate about.
And then combining that with an understanding of what you are
interested in, I think a lot of people don't underestimate the
fact that when you are very interested in something, you are
(17:22):
more likely to get good at it. But if you are already good at
something and you have no interest in it, you're probably
going to stay always that level that you're at because you're
not motivated to necessarily be better.
So pick something that you're interested in.
And that would be the mindset shift, like make your career
(17:42):
work for your interests rather than just doing a career because
it sounds like a good idea. Yeah, I couldn't, couldn't agree
more. And yeah, that was really
interesting actually, about having people that advocate for
you. I never really thought about
that in terms of expressing yourdesires to those around you so
that, you know, fortune can. Hopefully you're just opening
(18:03):
the net for fortune to fall in your favour.
But I just wondered then this, this kind of willingness to
learn that motivation because I've often thought a lot of
students are competing on fairlylevel academic ground a lot of
the time. And so that appetite desire to
be motivated and curious and hungry.
So for you, there seems to be this current consistent theme of
(18:24):
willingness to learn. Like where's that come from?
Like, how do you get someone's going to listen to this and go
maybe like, OK, you know, so like for me at school, I was
quite disinterested at school, Imust admit.
But how how would you then present it to someone?
You know, you're a natural learner.
Let's say I'm, I'm not, I'm a natural, I'd say worker and I'm
(18:47):
good in that scenario. So like how yeah.
Where the how can you learn those skills to have that
appetite to learn? Or is it just finding that thing
that that subject matter? I think it's a bit of both.
I actually wasn't interested at school to be honest with you.
I was a little bit of a troublemaker at school as well,
(19:07):
but not because I was actually trouble but because I found
everything or certain lessons. I found maths for example, I
found it quite easy so I'd finish the worksheet and then
start distracting everyone just with chit chatting.
So nothing too untoward, but like I wasn't really that
focused in school. I never really would submit my
homework. I wouldn't say follow that
advice at all. I would say be focused.
(19:29):
But I think it just proves that I can be someone who, when I was
at school, on paper, people would have probably not assumed
that I would be in the seat thatI'm in now because I wasn't that
academic and I wasn't that focused.
And a lot of that, I think, was a byproduct of moving around so
much and then not quite settlinganywhere long enough to really
(19:50):
get stuck in on an academic front.
But I think it's about changing the mindset to every day you
learn. And I'm not just talking about
things that are academic. When I, I recently just went,
for example, on a trip and they have a transport system that
I've never used before. So in that situation, it sounds
(20:10):
very basic, but I learned something new because I'm now
learning the transport system ina different country.
And so I think people think learning is getting your books
out and getting your notebook and writing it, writing these
things down. But it can just be everyday life
experiences that you're more aware of in terms of this is an
experience that I just learned something from.
(20:31):
And when you start to realize that for me, the reason that I
enjoy learning is not because ofthe learning itself.
I just like to have the knowledge because I like to
connect with people. And the more that you understand
about things, whether that be the transport system or whether
that be data and analytics, you can create better connections
with people. And when you feel like you're
(20:51):
more connected with people, it can help you in terms of that
mindset because now we've got more group think, whether that's
about to travel, all the work. Now we can kind of work together
to get somewhere. It is challenging, but when you
feel like you're doing it with someone with a team, whether
that's a friend, it makes it a lot more enjoyable in terms of
(21:14):
that experience. So I would say that as someone
who maybe comes across as someone who is really good at
learning or really academic, it was actually the opposite until
I got to university. And what I decided at university
is I was going to get the most that I could out of it, but
you're only going to get that ifyou put the most into it.
So it was that mindset of I wantto get out what I put in, but
(21:35):
combined with like every opportunity as a learning
opportunity really. That's great.
There's, there's so much great practical advice coming out
here. We're, we're definitely going
to, I'm going to ask many more about personal growth and advice
and things like that. But perhaps for then just a bit
more detail about this data analytics part of, of markets
(21:57):
and how it connects to trading the impact of data.
I just wondered, could you walk me through how data analytics
influences capital markets trading decisions?
Like how does that all come together?
Yeah, sure. So I love an analogy, so I'm
just about to warn you that I'm about to use one.
So analytics in general is the process of collecting,
(22:19):
processing and analysing data, but not just the analysis.
The whole reason that you do that is to draw patterns and
insights out of the data to support future decision making.
So it's essentially the analyststaking that one step further
into analytics, which is now that I've got all of this data,
what can I do with it? What insights can I draw from
(22:41):
it? The way that I always describe
my job is I use analogy just because it makes it easier.
So if you wanted to go to a concert right now, let's say
that it's playing in Manchester and in Birmingham and in Cardiff
and in London, for example. So you've got all these
different places that you can goand see this particular concert,
(23:02):
but the concert sold out. So now you need to buy a ticket
and you need to buy a resale ticket.
So say the original price of theticket was 100 lbs, but now
you've gone onto these resale websites, there's lots of
different resale websites that you can go to.
So you need to decide, do I wantto go and see this in London and
Manchester and Birmingham or in Cardiff?
(23:23):
And then the prices of the tickets will be different in
each of those locations. And so say you make the decision
today that I'm going to go to this concert, but you don't buy
your ticket until tomorrow. The price difference between the
price today and the price tomorrow is probably moved.
So think about each of the concert locations as the venues
(23:44):
in the stock market, so London Stock Exchange, etcetera.
And then think about the decision of you making a ticket
the moment that you go and buy the stock from the stock market.
If I bought the ticket tomorrow and I paid 115 lbs, but I made
the decision I was going to buy the ticket today when it was 110
lbs, I paid £5 extra because I delayed my decision.
(24:06):
The analytics tells you that information.
So say Anthony, you paid extra £5 because you decided to wait
an extra day to buy your ticket.And then you do that essentially
over millions of data points over time.
So we trade a significant amount, the industry trades a
significant amount. So you can kind of analyze all
(24:27):
of that data and you can run an analysis that says, is this
always the case? So is it always better to buy
these things one day sooner? Would I've got a better price?
Would I've got a worse price? So we're essentially saying,
when was the decision made versus when did the purchase
take place? What is that difference?
And then is there always a consistent pattern behind the
(24:49):
difference? So that's how I can kind of
explain it in a simple form. The feedback then in terms of
how it influences the decision decisions is should you have
bought the ticket at Cardiff Stadium instead of London?
Should you have bought it the day before instead of the day
after? So that's the type of feedback
that we'll be giving to the clients and to the traders on
(25:11):
their trading decisions. So maybe I can ask now a bit
more about the essential skills.And actually as you're
explaining that last bit, I was thinking you mentioned your
Deutsche boss and you were doingmore like a consulting role and
it sounded there, you just said you have to manage multiple
stakeholders. So was there actually a pretty
neat transition of skill sets between consulting like business
(25:35):
analysts, finding out what people need, what their desires
are, what objectives are, and then actually now in the role
that you have with the multi layered nature of it?
So yeah, I just like to understand the technical and
non-technical skills for for what you do.
SO1 non-technical skill that forme personally is very
underrated, is presentation. Presentation for me is key.
(25:59):
And what I mean by that is it's how you take an incredibly
complex topic or subject and simplify it for the audience
that you're speaking to and and explain it in a way that they
will understand. Not just the presentation in
terms of your communication, written and verbal, that's also
important. But how do you present yourself
(26:21):
in the workplace? I've had people that I know of
or I'm aware of that have gone into internships and they're
turning up to the internship in trainers.
For a lot of organizations, that's fine.
For this particular organization, we are more of a
traditional corporate. So that probably won't leave the
best impression in that type of environment.
(26:44):
So I think it's about knowing your audience, whether that's
the employer that you're workingwith as an intern and or the
stakeholders that you're communicating with.
They say KYC know your customer.It's like know you're know
you're the person that you're interfacing off with and what
their expectation of you may be.Because people are far more
forgiving if you don't have the technical skills or you make a
(27:07):
mistake on that front. If they can see that you've put
your absolute best foot forward and that you're trying your
hardest. So that's one thing that I will
say, there's nothing wrong with wearing trainers in the office.
But if when you get there, everysingle person in the office is
100 people and no one's got trainers on, kind of have a look
around and think, OK, maybe I should not wear the trainers in
(27:29):
this office, this particular space.
So I think presentation is key in that regard, knowing who
you're speaking to. I always look at people's
Linkedins before I have a meeting with them so I know what
their job title is, their function is, particularly if
it's a client call because you might have 5 different people
doing 5 different jobs in the room.
So I think that is very underrated personally.
(27:51):
Those non-technical skills. The technical side, I mentioned
coding already. So I code mainly in the language
of Sequel. Python is more widely used I
would say, and the one that people are generally moving
towards. So understanding that is great.
We use data visualization tools as well.
So just understanding how to usethose.
(28:13):
They obviously are all different, like coding
languages, there are multiple and they are different data
visualization tools. There are multiple and they are
all different. But if you understand the
concept of what they are, what they're doing, and the baseline
of what the language is trying to achieve, you can generally
pivot from one to the other without it being a significant
lift. So those are the other more
(28:34):
technical skills that I would say.
It may sound like a math C role because it's analytics, but a
lot of the actual maths is already provided and the data
comes through a platform that's already calculated.
So my job is to take that information and disseminate it
in a way that's easy to interpret and understand for
(28:55):
whoever the audience is. So it's about being able to look
at patterns in large data sets, which is not really something
you can teach, it's something that you just need to practice
over time as well. And can I just ask what's the
balance between kind of written and oral, kind of delivery of
the analysis, if you like, in terms of when thinking of
(29:17):
skills, They're quite two different things.
Being able to write well and understand your audience and the
time frames, particularly on thetrading floor when time is of
the essence often and they need very concise, impactful,
informative information. And then the audio, the verbal
side of relaying that as well asa different skill.
(29:38):
So what's the balance of that for you?
I would say that it would depend.
It depends upon your seat and itdepends upon how client facing
your role is. For me specifically, I'm pretty
client facing in my role and I would say that the written
communication happens a little bit more internally because
everyone understands the data more already.
(30:00):
So you don't have to give as much of an explanation, but
externally ticked, if it's a newer client, we will always
have that FaceTime in terms of explaining the information that
they're looking at. What you don't want,
particularly in trading, is for someone to look at the analysis
and see a red number and say, Ohmy gosh, terrible.
Because a lot of the time the red number actually doesn't mean
(30:20):
something bad. So you need someone to sit there
and say these are what these numbers mean and this is how to
read and interpret this information.
Once you've kind of done that a few times, generally people get
very comfortable with it and then you don't, you can send
them the presentation. You don't necessarily need to go
through to the same detail in terms of the the presentation
(30:44):
that would be overall. You can just kind of send it in
an e-mail, but it's definitely alot more upfront oral
communication because people will not understand the
information if you just deliver it to them, I would say 9 times
out of 10. So you want to have that preface
before they just kind of jump tomaybe the wrong conclusion on
the information that you're giving them?
(31:05):
So that the visualization I haveat the moment and of this client
side interaction and demystifying almost the numbers
on the page to make it understandable for someone a lot
of public speaking and I know talking to a lot of students,
this makes them highly anxious. Just people could be naturally
anxious. I think a lot of people had the
(31:26):
COVID situation who are now joining the workforce where
there wasn't a lot of human interaction full stop.
So as someone yourself who who does this as a job and does it
well, what advice can you give to someone who to start building
confidence and practical steps to be able to master that skill?
(31:47):
When I first got to Northern Trust, I got invited to a
conference and my boss said, do you want to go to this
conference? I said, yeah, sure.
I mean, he said there's one catch.
And I said, what is it? And he said, you need to speak
on a panel at the conference. And internally I freaked out and
I said, not sure if I want to dothat.
(32:07):
I'm going to come back to you. So I actually didn't say
immediately, yes, because I had that nervousness around.
Is this something that I can do?But I think the one thing is if
someone is asking you to do something, typically if they're
your manager or their senior, they obviously believe that you
can do it because they would notnominate you, particularly in a
(32:29):
situation where you're representing the company if they
didn't think that you were goingto represent the company well.
So that's one thing. The other thing is I did the
conference and everyone said great job, good, well done.
But me, I still had that voice of I don't know if I'm as good
(32:49):
as this as people think. Like internally I felt very
scared, very nervous. I had an Apple Watch at the
time. My heart rate was like racing
the whole time. And I'm thinking, everyone's
saying I'm great, but I don't feel necessarily that way.
And so I mentioned this internally and I actually ended
up being advised to get a speaking coach.
(33:12):
So if you're somebody who wants to do speaking in a more public
forum, I would definitely recommend getting professional
help if you feel like you need it, getting someone who does
this. The lady that actually helped me
used to be a broadcaster and a news anchor.
So she was very much used to that and she gave me really,
(33:33):
really good practical tips and advice for how to improve the
public speaking. So I would say for anyone that
does feel like they need that little bit of polishing, that's
fine. Get the help if you need it.
And the other thing is when I first started publicly speaking,
I had already been speaking a lot in terms of presenting
(33:56):
because I would present to clients in my job.
So it's about realizing that there are moments where you may
already be doing that within therole that you have.
Even if it's just presenting an idea that you have to your
manager and it's a one-on-one interaction, that's still you
presenting something. And so take the skills that you
(34:17):
learn from those situations and then hone them in and kind of
scale them up as you do more andmore speaking or speaking that's
a little bit more public or outside of your comfort zone.
So I would definitely say that the speech coach helped.
I will say that the speech coachafter the session said, I don't
(34:40):
really know what to tell you. Pause a bit more and that's
probably about it. So I feel like maybe it was an
internal dialogue and a little bit of an insecurity more so
than actually how it was presenting to others.
But even though that was the case, it gave me more confidence
that I wouldn't have otherwise had if I didn't have the coach.
(35:01):
So I would definitely say that that's an option for people.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we, we have elocution
coaches that come in for our training team for their, their
public sessions and things like that.
And yeah, there's one called theelocution coach if you're based
in the UK and they do free workshops all the time.
So if you're a student, I would definitely go and do it.
(35:21):
And they all come from an actingkind of drama background.
So it's really fun, super engaging and, and yeah, it's
helps immensely for our, for ourteam.
And there's also Toastmasters aswell that I know exist.
I have heard of that one as well.
Yeah. So there's stuff out there you
just got to get yourself involved and you know, it's
good, good for networking and meeting new people as well.
But you mentioned there perhaps though you had these skills and
(35:45):
actually it was more of a mental1.
And I just wondered. That leads me to my next kind of
question about more about experiences of your your
personal journey of impostor syndrome.
You know, you being a woman, youbeing black, you being, you
know, these different things that are not traditionally part
(36:05):
of. What?
What I guess makes up a large subset of of what this industry
looks like. And I just wondered, you know,
what's that experience been likefor you and, and, and, you know,
has there been challenges and ifso, have you overcome them?
I'd say that yes, there's challenges.
(36:27):
I still feel impostor syndrome all the time.
Like, why did you ask me to do this podcast?
It's not a thought that did not cross my mind before coming here
to speak to you. So I think that is an ongoing
thing. And I also feel like most people
to some extent have it. I remember I asked a very, very
senior leader who I really respected a lot and appreciated
(36:49):
a lot how they deal with public speaking.
Just going back to that last point and they said I still get
nervous every single time and I still like why they asking me to
speak sometimes. And that's someone who doesn't
have those certain things that you just mentioned there in
terms of he is a white male who's older, in his late 50s,
(37:11):
early 60s, who is really established and still feels that
way. So I don't think it's bad.
And one thing that he said to me, which really sticks to me is
if you didn't feel that way, then you probably don't care.
Like if you're not having that internal dialogue and if you're
not having that kind of little bit of pressure that you put on
yourself, it may be that you're not that interested.
So he kind of said, don't see itas a bad thing, but what you
(37:35):
don't want is your imposter syndrome to stop you from doing
things. So as much as I have that self
doubt, I'm still sitting here having this conversation with
you as a good example of where Idon't allow the internal
dialogue to hold me back. And any moment where I do have
those, you know, any time I havethose moments where I think I'm
(37:56):
might get into a space where I'mlike, oh, I don't know if I can
do this. And second guessing myself.
I actually, and it may sound really silly, but I think it's
really good advice. I actually write positive
feedback that I get, particularly when it's written
into a note on my laptop. Anytime I have an annual review
and you know, something really nice is written down there, I'll
(38:18):
take that. I'll put it in a note so that
when I have those moments and I'm doubting myself, I go back
to that note because that note is not my internal dialogue.
That's actually what people haveseen in the work that I've
produced and in what I've done. So I would recommend
particularly young people, as weird as it may feel initially,
to kind of write things that arereally positive about yourself
(38:40):
that other people are saying in a note.
It is the truth. And I think when you're not
writing it down or when you're not reminding yourself, that's
when you get stuck sometimes in that little bit of self doubt.
So even though it may seem a little strange, it definitely
does work as you mentioned that I have like the
(39:00):
intersectionality between race and between gender.
And I'm also earlier on in my career, as in, you know, I'm a
little bit younger, so, and there's always that thing of
when you're walking into the room, are they going to take me
seriously? And I've had experiences where
people have not shaken my hand as I've gone into the meeting
(39:21):
room with them. And so it doesn't help then with
the imposter syndrome and the self doubt.
And I think that when those things happen, you need to focus
more on the note that you wrote to yourself with all the
positive feedback that people said, and not that one
interaction or that one experience.
Because I would love to sit hereand promise you that that will
(39:43):
never happen and you'll never feel that way.
But the chances are that you might at one time or another
feel, you know, confused or or maybe like you're not good
enough or you don't understand why things are happening a
certain way. But I think that it's one of
those things where you have to make sure you're focusing on all
the people that advocate for youand that all the people that
(40:05):
believe in you. And not necessarily paying
attention to the opposite. Just one more thing I want to
mention is I actually wrote my dissertation in university on
ethnic minority women achieving leadership roles in finance and
that's probably the one thing that I've carried with me in my
career from university to now. So I wrote that dissertation in
(40:28):
2015 and it really helped me with the tools that I needed.
First of all, the understanding that this is not a unique
problem to me. Everyone feels this self doubt
and imposter syndrome, but also how do you overcome it?
There are certain tools. One of them is, unfortunately,
you've got to work a little bit harder, you've got to be a
little bit smarter. But the main one was having a
(40:49):
good network of people. So when I say about my friends
that advocated for me, I've alsobeen a mentor.
I've had mentors and just havingthose relationships with people
really helps you to grow as a professional, but also it can
help with some of these things. I remember one person senior
that I respect a lot told me I have impossibly high standards.
(41:13):
And so having someone say that you're kind of like, OK, well,
what I'm probably aiming for is not realistic.
And then that helps as well. And another thing that someone
has said to me is I remember I had like, some sort of illness,
I don't remember what it was like something like strep throat
or something. And I'd gone into work and I
(41:34):
wasn't at 100%. And I apologize to my boss for
saying, oh, you know, I'm sorry,I'm not 100%.
I'm just still like trying to recover from this illness.
And he said you're 80% is still significantly better than other
people's 100%. So don't worry about it.
And that's the message that I keep telling myself every time I
feel like I'm falling short of the 100 because it happens.
(41:55):
We're not robots. You are going to have your good
days and your bad days. But just reminding yourself that
that's how people see you, I think is really good in that
sense. You mentioned networking there
being quite crucial actually in order to to lift oneself in
terms of your aspirations and your career.
(42:16):
So how do how do you do that? Like how do you go about like
fostering this particularly, youknow, someone like, you know,
myself coming from a working class background, I don't really
have a lot of friends. I was growing up whose parents
are professionals, things like that.
So how do you have that mindset?But more practically, how do you
do that? And even in your early career,
(42:36):
when you're at university, what can what can our listeners be
doing to cultivate those relationships?
Yeah, it's a difficult one. People don't generally believe
me when I say this, but I'm a very introverted and I feel like
I'm a little bit of a socially awkward person.
I know it doesn't come off that way and people be like, no way,
but I do really before interacting with people, I
(42:58):
really do think about it a lot. And then after the interaction
I'm like, oh, how did that go? And I will replay it.
So I am one of these people thatdoesn't come, networking doesn't
come very naturally to me. So it's something that I have to
make a conscious effort to do. 1thing that I will say is having
(43:20):
spoken to people in a way that'sslightly more candid and
vulnerable, like how I'm speaking to you in this podcast,
you learn that a lot of people do feel exactly the same way.
So you're in a room full of people and I would say, you
know, maybe 50% of them, if not more, are kind of thinking all
this is a little bit awkward andI don't really know what to do
and say. And I think the earlier you are
(43:40):
in your journey, the more likelythat that is more the case
amongst the room that you're in.So just know that and don't feel
like you're alone in that feeling.
One thing that works really wellfor me is sometimes your network
can be from people advocating for you.
As I've already mentioned a few different times, the network
(44:00):
doesn't have to directly be you going to a cocktail thing where
you're having drinks and you're saying hello to people.
It could just be that people areaware of you and then they tell
other people about you or your skills and your network can just
be like a word of mouth thing. If you want to elevate it that
little bit more, you can go to those networking events, but
just go with a friend, go with someone that you do feel
(44:23):
comfortable with and then kind of challenge each other.
OK, that person looks like they're a little bit lost.
We're going to go and speak to them and say hello and there
will be someone in the room that's looking like that.
So that's the other thing that Iwould say go with someone if you
feel really uncomfortable with networking.
And then the final thing is likefind common ground with people.
(44:45):
One thing that I generally find common ground with people on
very quickly as travelling, where are you going?
Where have you been? And then you can kind of have
that conversation about that or it could be about your goals.
Tell me something interesting that you're working on right
now. Great question for networking
(45:05):
rather than just hi, how are you?
What do you do? Like tell me an interesting
project that you're working on. Tell me what you want to get out
of this networking, like what brings you here.
Try and avoid the more cliche questions and you'll very
quickly find common ground with someone.
I think that way. And it doesn't have to always be
super professional. Let the conversation drift.
(45:26):
One thing that I was not very good at in my socially more
socially awkward phase the now is having a conversation that's
very organic. I was a little bit robotic of so
what's your name and what do youdo and whereabouts is that?
And it was very just like very fact finding type.
It's not an interview. It shouldn't be a conversation
(45:48):
and back and forth. So just try and have a chat
about something unrelated to thereason that you're there if
that's what you feel comfortablewith.
All right. Well, it it leads me to my final
question and it's a question that I have asked all of our
guests so far, which is kind of retrospectively looking back at
(46:09):
your younger self, if there's one piece of advice you could
give that Victoria, what would it be?
It's a difficult one because I feel as though, and I did think
about this, like, what would I say to my younger self?
And I feel as though it would bewhen you're younger, you want to
(46:32):
fit in and you want to have network of people where you're
fitting in and sometimes someonethat went to, you know, 6
different slash primary slash high schools.
I was always trying to reinvent myself in every new school based
on what I thought people liked and what I thought people would
want to be friends with. And I would say actually fitting
(46:56):
in when you get older is quite the opposite of what you want.
You want to actually stand out. So I think I would tell my
younger self that you may not necessarily fit in at the
moment, but this is going to be something that will kind of be
your superpower as you go into adulthood in the professional
workplace. So it is better to stand out.
(47:16):
And I know that's a little bit cliche, but it is the case.
And particularly in somewhere like London, there's so many
people here. You'll find your people, you'll
find your network. So instead of trying to make
yourself fit in a place that maybe isn't for you, make find
the place that is for you instead, because you're always
going to feel like you're not quite good enough if you're in
(47:40):
the wrong circles. They always say that if you ask
A, there's a saying something about if you ask a oh gosh, I
have to remember what it is. There's a saying about if you
ask a fish to climb a tree, the fish is going to feel like a
failure. But if you ask the fish to swim,
(48:03):
then it will feel like a success.
So if you're in the wrong circle, you might feel like that
fish trying to climb that tree. All right, that you said that
you liked analogies, so we'll finish on on the fish analogy.
And but look, honestly, that wassuch a, a really interesting
conversation both from, you know, your openness to speak
about your journey to the practicality or, or you know,
(48:26):
some really useful steps there, I think to follow on those,
those bits of advice. And what I will do is I'll put
chapters. So wherever you listen or watch
this episode, I'll chapterize the conversation.
So definitely you should, you know, go in and have a look at
what parts, if not everything that will be useful for you.
But Victoria, thank you so much for all of your time and your
insights and your openness. Really appreciate it.
(48:48):
And yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for loving me.
I've really enjoyed speaking with you today.
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