There has never been more financial information available to students. Markets can be followed in real time, lectures watched online, almost any technical concept explained in seconds.

But finance has never just been about information. I take core analytical competence as a given, the starting point, not the differentiator. It’s an industry built on people, judgement, relationships and stories. Understanding how decisions get made, how businesses develop, how financial institutions actually evolved, takes more than sitting behind a screen.

Drawing on my own career as a trader, fund manager, investment bank director and PLC chief executive, I want to bring some of that world to students directly. That’s why Junior Trader is planning a programme of in-person tours, lectures and university events alongside our existing educational work, so you can see and discuss the human skills behind every click of the mouse or AI command.

Tales from the City

This lecture lifts the lid on what it’s actually like to work a 90-hour week: the behind-the-scenes friction with your own teammates, and the secondary job market, the informal network of favours, reputations and relationships running underneath the official one, where you often make the real impact.

This matters because it gives students context for the industry they hope to join, and answers as many of their questions as possible along the way. It also does something else I care about: it preserves financial and commercial heritage, by telling the human stories behind buildings, institutions and places that would otherwise become little more than names on a blue plaque.

Tales from the Boardroom

This one comes at finance from the other direction: life as an entrepreneur. Facing questions from shareholders, clients and your own team, often all at once, while trying to build a family life alongside it. If you aspire to be an entrepreneur, this is the truth about raising capital, building trust, and the different styles of leadership each stage demands.

Why this matters

Markets are ultimately about decisions made by people. Careers develop through relationships, opportunities, mistakes and judgement. Boardrooms hold competing personalities and competing priorities. Investment decisions rarely arrive with all the information you’d like them to.

Some of the most useful lessons for students come not from theory, but from understanding what professional life actually feels like.

I want to bring students together, share some Tales from the City and Tales from the Boardroom, answer questions candidly, and introduce them to the wider Junior Trader community. I’m genuinely staggered by the lengths university societies go to in order to simulate working life, and I want to add some real-life colour to that, as a trader and a CEO, for these young leaders.

While on tour, I’ll also be offering private networking events to societies, something I’d have been first in line for back in my day.

These events will be deliberately personal: a good venue, a room of interested students, and enough time for a proper conversation. Because sometimes the best way to understand an industry isn’t another hour online, or in a seminar room. Expect guest speakers, fellow CEOs, and a few secret stories along the way. You may have read about some legendary expensive lunches and dinners; come and find out what my head of research actually had to say about those.

If you’re involved with a university finance, investment, economics or business society and would like Junior Trader to visit this November, we’d love to hear from you.