“I think a lot of our lives are devalued by not having risk in them. We devalue the meaning life. ” —Brandon Davies, Banker
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Sean Cole
My hunt for a British banker was conducted wholly from my apartment outside Boston. Since London is a major hub of international finance, you'd think finding a profile candidate would be like ordering french fries at McDonald's. But my initial candidates were either too unreachable, too tight-lipped, or too busy. The story, after all, would require two days of tailing someone as he or she sped around to meetings, lunched with colleagues, commuted, etc. One bloke who seemed promising e-mailed me back with: "Idea: great. Two days: hopeless!"
Finally, someone at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation told me about Brandon Davies, a former barrow boy (read: street vendor) from Essex who had his fingers in a lot of pies. I was told he ran a think tank, worked for an Islamic bank and, conversation-wise, that he didn't "have an off switch." He sounded perfect.
As it turns out, Brandon Davies is not a former barrow boy. He is, however, a former trader at Barclays Bank. He told me that all traders are thought to have been barrow boys at some point because of the quick thinking and deal sealing involved. Brandon isn't from Essex, either. He's from Kent. Luckily, though, my contact was right about the off switch. Brandon can talk until tomorrow comes. He wasn't manic or blustery. He just had an awful lot to say.
He also had more jobs than I realized -- six or seven depending on how you count. He directed the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), a nonprofit that, among other activities, trains bankers in emerging markets like Indonesia on the finer points of Basel II, a global regulatory accord for banking. He was on the boards of two banks. He traded equities and currencies. He helped put together property and insurance deals. He taught. He wrote books. He told me that he wanted to do so many things after retiring from Barclays that, at 59, he had better do them all at once.
Brandon is deeply interested in the economics of developing countries. I was raised to believe in foreign aid to impoverished nations and was taken aback when he said that charity doesn't work. There are just too many people who need help. Banking is the route out of poverty in struggling nations, he said. Banks have a moral obligation to grow small businesses and the economies around them. Somewhere on that bustling road packed with mom-and-pop shops in Jakarta is a Wal-Mart waiting to happen. He meant that in a good way. He also quoted Shakespeare: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Among all the elevated ideas, though, it was hard for me to keep up with the nuts and bolts of Brandon's bailiwick. I told Brandon that I needed to record him doing his job as though I wasn't there. He did what he could, but much of his business is conducted in boardrooms and trading rooms that are hermetically sealed from the press. I was shut out of meeting after meeting. I was barred from the trading room floor at a brokerage firm with the strangely optimistic name Eden. I finally asked Brandon why everything was so secret. Nothing sinister, he said. But if I learned something, and acted on it inappropriately, everyone could wind up in court.
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