Career reinvigoration when you leave a 3rd tier bank: 3 lessons

Banking careers often follow a certain gravitational trajectory: start high, and move progressively lower before quitting the industry altogether for 'fintech,' or maybe real estate, or maybe cookery school. 

It not need be this way. Three former Nomura employees in London suggest there is life after the third tier. You just need to pitch yourself right.

Try the corporates 

Euan Drysdale, Nomura's former head of EMEA metals and mining, has just turned up at Vesuvius plc, a listed 'molten metal engineering' company, where he'll be group head of corporate finance. Drysdale joined Nomura in 2014 after 10.5 years at Citi and 26 months at Morgan Stanley. Now, he's still doing deals - just not at a bank. This (obviously) only works if you've been in corporate finance.

Try the 'platforms' 

If you lose a job at a bank that's outside the top ten for market share in sales and trading, you're going to find it hard to get back in again. Banks aren't the only organizations offering sales and trading jobs now though: there are also the electronic trading platforms, and you might be able to get a job there.

This is what William Imbrogno did. After leaving Nomura's equity derivatives desk last May, he spent eight months as an executive director at Leonteq, a Swiss structured products platform. Now he's back in banking: he's just joined Natixis as a director on the equity derivatives flow, delta one, and financing desk.

Try a little known brokerage

James Wilkinson, Nomura's former head of SSA and covered bond trading, also went for the bridging option. After leaving Nomura in 2015, he spent 15 months as a credit trader at the LXM Group - a 'finance company' in London's Belgravia. Now he's back, working in SSA trading and credit trading at Daiwa Capital Markets.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com