Dan Whitehead - My City Career
Whilst this business is all about supporting YOU in your city career, it would be remiss of me not to share some background on mine too.
Arguably, my own City Career almost started when I was born - having a father who was a Head of Fixed Income Trading for a number of merchant and investment banks, and then later on, an older brother who followed in his footsteps and still runs a dealing room for a German bank to this day. Perhaps therefore it was somewhat inevitable that I should follow them into the city after university, which I did with a role on the trading floor at the now infamous Lehman Brothers.
However, after a health setback two years into my nascent career, I decided to change direction and took a role in a small executive search firm and then a well known recruitment consultancy. All of this set me up for what was to follow -which was an amazing 20 year career in HR/Talent running recruitment for some of the biggest and most well known global brands in banking, investment banking, investment management (including alternatives) and more recently (Re)insurance.
Over that time, I've run teams that have hired tens of thousands of people from graduate to executive level all over the UK and in most developed/developing countries around the world. I have helped to build teams and scale businesses and I've been heavily involved in talent and succession planning activities. I've personally screened many thousands of CVs, interviewed thousands of candidates, recruited for multiple roles across every function of an organisation including c100 MD level hires right up to Group Executive level and NEDs.
I have partnered with the full range of vendors that service the recruitment and talent industry including upscale and specialist recruitment agencies and the full set of global/ SHREK and boutique search firms and executive assessment providers. I have experienced real career highs and career setbacks including redundancy and have first hand experience of managing my own job search.
"Through all of this I have learnt a huge amount about what helps you get hired and what doesn't and how to navigate the city jobs market, and why having a job search strategy and career (development) plan are critical components of a successful career in the city."
