Walking Away from BlackRock
A finance fairytale — going from an underpaid back office minion in Manchester to front office in Asset Management in London.
People ask me, do you regret leaving BlackRock?
I’ve grappled with this question for a long time. And the question comes in multiple forms, as it wasn’t just about leaving the company in itself.
Do I miss the money and people thinking I was successful?
Absolutely.
When I told my colleagues I was leaving, they assumed I was off to another investment firm. But when I said I was heading to a Syrian refugee camp in Greece, followed by work at an NGO in Brazil, they thought I’d lost my mind. A few, like the Russian oil analyst, cornered me and congratulated me for my bravery. But, they were few and far between.
I never had much of a career plan, and working at Blackrock certainly wasn’t a goal. I was riding a wave, doing what I thought I should — chasing society’s idea of success, which led me to a finance fairytale.
I went from a tortured, underpaid back office minion in Manchester to the intelligent yet personality-lacking middle office. From there, it was to the Formula One drivers of the finance world — front office in asset management in…
