Area of work

European Leveraged Finance, Structured Finance

Studied

Economics, University of Bath

Joined

2007

Working in

London

When BNP Paribas came to my campus in Bath I was very impressed by the professionalism and open nature of the people I met. I did more research into them and saw how big a presence they had globally, they have a presence in Mexico for instance which interests me because I'm half Mexican and I think it might be interesting to transfer there at some point during my career.

I also really wanted to work for a European bank, as I had heard that they had a very supportive culture and are really focused on the development of their trainees. When you are working at BNP Paribas, you don't need to put in unnecessary face time to try to impress your manager, when you've done your work, you get out of the office. The non-rotational training policy means that you definitely have a job after the graduate program finishes and it also means that the team you work for really puts time in to help you, because they know you're there for the long term. To me it feels like banking with a human face. The hours can be long obviously, there are no short shifts in investment banking, but people are really understanding. They realise you have priorities other than work and are willing to stick by you and support you if they see you're committed - there isn't constant pressure to keep proving yourself again and again.

Even though you don't recognise that you're learning every day, it's really satisfying when this knowledge comes to you. I didn't know anything about finance or bonds when I started so I used to sit there in meetings wondering what was going on. Everyone in banking seems to speak a different language, filled with acronyms and jargon, and when you don't know what things mean you can get pretty lost. I think everyone goes through a stage when they start a challenging new job where they think, "is this how difficult it should be?" People might be very understanding here, but that doesn't mean that the work is any easier. Now I can speak the financial language though, I know that even though I came here straight from an undergraduate degree, without any finance background I'm on a par with friends who are doing Master's in Finance from prestigious universities - it's a great feeling to know that I've caught up with them.

I'm very closely linked to other areas of the bank, both other divisions and other offices, especially the Syndication and High Yield and Loans divisions. I went to a High Yield seminar in February this year and all the other European offices went as well. It was great to finally be able to put faces to the names of people I'd talked to so often on conference calls. Even better, the conference took place at a beautiful French chateau that's owned by the bank and we had a grand dinner in the ballroom where everyone was dressed up ­- it was very glamorous.