When I joined Crédit Agricole CIB in Sydney, my role was to head the Australian project finance business.  I thoroughly enjoyed my role given the quality of the team and the solid market position we had, and continue to have.

In 2007 I had the opportunity to come to London to take my current role as Global Head of Infrastructure. It was an interesting time as it coincided with the start of the global financial crisis.  The move to London has been the highlight of my 18 years in banking. The Group has such a strong global franchise, particularly in Europe. The last three and a half years have seen our Bank dominate the infrastructure sector, not just in Europe, but also North America where we have built a strong team, and also continued success in Australia. The success has been a combination of the professional and experienced Infrastructure team in London and Paris as well as excellent teams in New York and Sydney.

I have two key functions on a day to day basis:

• to position the Bank for the best deals, utilising our deep client relationships; and
• to steward the deals through the management and credit approval process.

Beyond the day to day activities I travel a lot to North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific to develop the business and get closer to clients within each key market. The benefit of this is the tremendous knowledge gained in each market to understand where the industry is heading and being able to spot the best opportunities.

• solid understanding of risk,
• good commercial sense to focus on developing close client relationships,
• a balanced personality to ensure the confidence of internal management and risk, as well as marketing finesse to position with key clients at a senior level,
• integrity, honesty and experience: this is key, in order to earn the respect of the team and the clients.