GUEST COMMENT: Why I left the City for a start-up in Basingstoke

If you had told me two years ago that I would leave my fast paced City career and social life of theatre, galleries and restaurants for a leafy suburb of Basingstoke, I would have laughed out loud. But that's exactly what I did. What happened?

Let's face it - I'm such a City girl. I had only ever lived inside the M25. And Basingstoke... I'd never even heard of it before meeting my now business partner. (Basingstoke is apparently famous for its roundabouts and being home to the shopping centre that Top Gear drove inside!)

Then late last year I made the jump. If I'm honest it had been coming a while. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my 13 years in banking. I had thrived on the challenges and leaned an immense amount about business. I thought it a privilege to work with amazingly talented people and never bored of the diversity - simply hearing all the different languages spoken as I walked to and from meetings would always make me smile. But much as I had loved the buzz of the City and working in a great blue-chip environment, I'd always had a yearning to run my own business one day.

Why start in a recession? Well, professionally speaking many think it's the best time. More personally, I received a massive jolt when my father passed away early last year. The last thing I wanted to feel was that I was treading water when life was so short. The global banking crisis meant that the industry would need to go through a period of review, new regulation and supervision. There was a high chance that new products, business and growth would have to be parked - but I had my life to get on with...

I wanted to take all the things I had learned in years of corporate work, and put them into practice with smaller businesses. You see, I love making things work better. My job had always been about increasing efficiency, productivity and profit - something I achieved through a combination of great people and great technology. Now, with the Internet and the on-going commoditisation of IT, many of the tools and technologies pioneered by the corporate giants are available at a fraction of the cost to anyone. My time had come.

And so, I swapped 12-hour days on the trading floor for 12-hour days in my start-up.

And Basingstoke? It just made good business sense: lower cost of living, in the heart of the UK's Silicon Valley and with great transport links back to London.

I do miss the big firm infrastructure from time-to-time. There are so many hats to wear, and nothing exists until it's created... Which department do I refer this to? What policy applies? Hmmm....

But I don't miss much else. The people and the afternoon sweet trolley maybe!

I have no regrets about staying in banking as long as I did. But now, I'm not sure I could ever go back. While the roller coaster ride of the entrepreneurial journey can be terrifying, it's also hugely exhilarating. If there's one thing I have learned so far - you just have to go for it, and see where the road leads to next.

Linda Cheung is was a former European Chief Operating Officer for Institutional Securities Financing at Morgan Stanley. She is now CEO of Connectegrity and is on a mission to help legal, accounting and other professional services firms grow their businesses by better knowing their clients and winning new and repeat custom. Follow Linda's start-up journey via the web (https://www.connectegrity.com) or on Twitter (@LindaCheungUK).