If you look at the job advertisements of large banks or large financial companies, you will find, among the specifics of academic credentials, the request for a degree in economics or management or statistics or, for finance quants, in physics or mathematics. It is difficult to require degrees in humanities. But at the head of one of the big four Australian banks, Westpac, there is a woman, Gail Kelly, who did not start her career in finance in Canary Wharf (in the City of London) as a derivatives trader, or in Martin Place (Sydney ) as an analyst.
No, he taught the language of Cicero and Julius Caesar in a private school, the Falcon College of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). His bank – Westpac – would not have hired her today: among the required degrees there are no humanities. And this despite the fact that Kelly's heir apparent, Brian Hartzer, has a degree in European history from Princeton.
From this point of view, the City of London – and also New York – are more open: it is not uncommon to see managers in M&A who come from the study of English history or literature, and Corporate America has also hired archaeologists, philosophers and even cello players. Peter Acton, a former member of the Boston Consulting Group, said: "The ability to help a client solve complex problems, to come up with creative solutions and articulate their logic, all of these things are favored by classical studies, beyond the traditional management theory.
