Guillaume Piard went to business school to get away from banking. The then vice-president in the structured solutions division of Nomura, the Japanese bank, had spent a decade working at institutions in London and Paris, but felt frustrated by the rising tide of regulation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
After studying at Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Mr Piard has returned to the finance industry as the founder of a fintech start-up.
“I hadn’t appreciated the range of options to work in this industry,” he says, adding that he is glad to have found an alternative to a salaried role in a large investment bank. “Before business school it would never have occurred to me to go down this path.”