Charlotte Garrett is an Operations Officer at Finalto. Charlotte works at Finalto’s London office where she is part of an international team. We spoke to Charlotte about teamwork, streamlining complex processes and the business case for being a people person.
You work in financial services in the City of London. Was this always your career ambition?
I only seriously considered a career in finance in my last year of university. However, having studied French, Spanish and Portuguese, I wasn’t sure it would be possible. Fortunately, a consultancy recruited me for their graduate scheme via LinkedIn and, looking back, it was my best route into financial services and kickstart to my career.
My first client as a consultant was a Tier 1 investment bank, where I joined a team tasked with a 14-week intensive project to get the bank ready for an industry deadline. Even after training at the consultancy’s headquarters, this was an extremely daunting project for a fresh graduate, which had me doubting myself and my choices. My first year as a consultant really pushed me to grow quickly and taught me how to be adaptable and professional in a fast-paced environment.
That seems intense, but it also sounds like a great foundation for your career.
Absolutely. As a consultant, I contributed to different departments at multiple client sites, including investment banks, global trade organisations and hedge funds. I was exposed to a wide range of professional expertise and had to learn to be flexible and think on my feet.
The last client I worked for as a consultant saw me transition into FX operations, where I have been ever since. As an Operations Officer, overseeing rolling forward FX positions is one of my key responsibilities.
Tell us more about the day-to-day demands of your role.
In addition to rollovers, I settle cash, manage futures contracts, calculate swap rates and liaise with our liquidity providers. We have strong relationships with existing providers, which include major investment banks, plus we’re often adding new providers to our network. A core part of my role is maintaining our existing relationships, while building new, mutually productive, relationships. I frequently negotiate with our providers to ensure we offer the most favourable rates to our clients.
Of course, the key to our success is that the Operations team works together, in a coordinated way, to guarantee the efficient running of the business. In doing so, we leverage each person’s particular skills, as well as considering our capacities as a team. For instance, one of my colleagues has especially well-developed systems knowledge, and delivers regular data-rich reports for clients and for other Finalto teams. I like to think I’ve learnt to leverage my people skills to help my negotiations with stakeholders and gain a business advantage.
How does that translate in terms of workflow?
A high volume of diverse tasks is carefully divided amongst the team. These are continually changing as we seek to improve processes but also as Finalto evolves. On top of our daily tasks, my team and I get involved with ad hoc requests and projects. For example, I was recently asked to document the current procedure for capturing market holidays affecting trading schedules. Internally, we ensure that if there is a market holiday, our systems will reflect this accordingly. Externally, we have to communicate upcoming holidays to clients ahead of time. This is a collaborative project involving numerous teams all working towards the same goal of a more automated and streamlined process. Projects like these are what make my role so varied and probably bring me the most satisfaction.
Your colleagues in Operations are based in Finalto offices around the world. What’s it like working with such an international team?
Operations is a truly global division, with team members in Copenhagen, Singapore and London. From the very start of my career, I’ve worked with people across the globe, so the international nature of the Operations team at Finalto feels very familiar to me. The great thing about my team is that despite different working styles, we always support each other. If an issue such as an unmatched trade is taking longer than expected to resolve, we can hand it over to another region to gain traction on it outside of our own time zone. Naturally, our different working styles bring different strengths too, which add value to the team. We have learnt to take advantage of our diversity of styles and thinking, meaning our team is stronger than the sum of its parts.
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