(see what I did there?)
Well, I’m no longer at Nomura, taking a week off, then off to pastures Blue.
I have mixed feelings on leaving. The people at Lehman (and Nomura) have been great and a pleasure to work with and I’ll miss them, but the job itself wasn’t quite right for me, so I am pleased to be moving on, hopefully in the right direction.
There are some other definite advantages to moving to Barcap:
- It’s a five minute shorter commute, so only about a 15 minute walk now.
- They don’t have a subsidised staff restaurant, so I’ll have a fighting chance of losing some weight (though see point 1 for less exercise)
So another chapter in my career ends and a new one begins.
When I joined Lehman in April 2007, the systems and processes imposed by the US part of our global team were very messy and required a large amount of man-power just to keep going. The philosophy seemed to be “long hours = good work.”
I’ve long wanted to clean this all up, but it’s just not been possible as it requires buy-in and enthusiasm from all concerned.
Since the Nomura/Barcap split of my group, however, I’ve had the opportunity to do that cleanup.
It’s very satisfying.
It took a while, but after a lot of hard work by the team, we finally got it up.
Where ‘it’ is the One True Global* Puma.
* the other Puma being the dodgy one that only runs in the US 
Well, actually it’s my old job, although not completely.
So Lehman Brothers Holding filed for Chapter 11 a couple of weeks ago, the US bit got bought whole by Barclays Capital, and Nomura International are in the process of buying the Equities plus other bits of Lehman UK, the whole (I think) of Lehman Japan and also Lehman India.
Deal not done (UK), but it looks very much like we’re here to stay, but with a change of owner.
A lot of people in my group in London were looking for new jobs, many had offers, some more than one, but by and large, people have decided to stay. It gives you a somewhat warm and fuzzy feeling to know that a whole bunch of people are pulling together to make stuff work and make it work better than before (and without the US bossing us around!)
So what about me? Well, I’m in a far greater position of influence that I was two weeks ago. I have a bigger, happier team to work with, and we’re likely to expand.
I do have one very good and concrete option elsewhere, but my feeling right now is to stay.
But it feels like Friday already – been a busy and tiring week; last week too.
Today is going to be very busy with already-planned interviews and the first day of the Lehman/Nomura merge, so half the day in the City and half in Canary Wharf.
Fortunately, I’ve got a long weekend coming up, with an Audi Driving Experience day at Silverstone on Monday, so something to enjoy and take my mind off business.
I predict lots of sleep on Saturday and Sunday.
So today we find out that the European Lehman business was acquired by Nomura. We lose the US, but keep with the Lehman guys in Tokyo.
Our new CEO, Kenichi san, looks like a top geezer too.
Interesting times, lots of opportunity, and quite a few relieved faces around here.
