Q) Have you always been a teacher?

A) “Teaching was not my first career. After I completed my degree in History & Philosophy at the University of Kent, I spent 20 years in investment banking and consulting in London before I considered changing to teaching.

“During my finance career I worked at KPMG and PWC where I was a tax consultant. I then did a Masters at the London Business School before going on to banking and tax planning roles at Barclays Capital, Commerzbank, GE Capital and eventually SMBC Aviation which was based in Dublin so I had to commute from my home in London every week. My final banking job was at Natixis CIB.”

Q) A lot of Concord students have ambitions to work in finance. What qualities do you need to work in that career?

“It’s demanding on your time and comes with lots of pressure. It’s a high stakes, low tolerance role where there is a lot on the line if you get things wrong. You’ve also got to be able to communicate clearly with your clients.

“I had to put complex finance deals together which involved a lot of legal work and tax analysis to make sure the transactions work as the investors want them to.  To an outsider it looks like a glamorous role with opportunities to travel to exotic destinations, but I was so busy I rarely got time to enjoy them.

“Ultimately you’ve got to be genuinely interested in it. I’ve seen job applicants with amazing backgrounds on paper, but they must be able to convincingly answer the question ‘why do you want to work here?’.

Q) What made you decide to become a teacher?

A) “While banking is a great career, you have to work very long hours, so I had to spend a lot of time away from my young family. Teaching was a natural choice to get a better career-life balance and both my brother and sister are teachers and my mother worked in education too. I enrolled on a PGCE course at Roehampton University and made the change.”

Q) What brought you to Concord?

A) “After 20 years in London, me and my family wanted to try life in the countryside. I also knew I wanted to work at an academic school where students were keen to learn and work hard.

“When the job at Concord was advertised I applied. Mr Clive Webb, who was the Head of Economics at the time, recently told me that he wasn’t that keen to interview me initially as it was my first teaching job. He then told me, after he observed my interview lesson, that he thought ‘this boy can teach!’ and offered me the job.”

Q) After your successful career in finance this was your first teaching role, how did you prepare for the high standard of teaching at Concord?

“It is true that you have to be well-prepared to teach Concord students. I read all the text books and practiced exam questions before I started, and I have plenty of real-life relatable experience to share which helps a lot.”

Q) What are your plans for the future?

“We’ve enjoyed living in the countryside but now we no longer have school-age children we are ready to head back to London where we still have lots of friends and I’m looking forward to getting involved in coaching athletics at my old club. Jobwise, I’ll be joining James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich as Head of Economics.”