How to quit banking after 13 years and find a new job in 1 month

Can you spend most of your working life in financial services only to exit in your mid-40s and do something just as exciting? Yes. Will Draper, formerly head of Telecoms research at Mirabaud Securities, has achieved just that.

As we reported previously, Draper left Mirabaud in late September. He's now confirmed his arrival as director of investor relations at BT one month later. Impressive for a man who'd been working in banking since 1998.

Needless to say, Draper isn't the first equity researcher to leave for investor relations and will certainly not be the last. In the past few months, James Collins, a retail research analyst at Stifel Financial, became head of investor relations at J Sainsbury in the UK and Richard Burden, a managing director in insurance research at Credit Suisse, became head of investor relations at Zurich Insurance. Like Draper, both men worked in equity research for a years and both went into their new investor relations jobs immediately.

In this sense, equity research looks like a good career option for anyone looking for a nice clean exit strategy from their finance career when their time comes. If you want to quit finance and find a new job easily, work here.

Draper didn't respond to a request to comment on his sidestep, but his career in finance looks as syncopated as most - in 18 years in finance, he mostly spent two to three years at each employer (with the exception of nine years at Execution). Maybe the move to BT marks an opportunity to settle down?

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com