Investment banking loses another woman as Cynthia Whelan resigns - Women's Agenda

Investment banking loses another woman as Cynthia Whelan resigns

Australian business will soon lose a high-profile female CEO following the resignation of investment banker Cynthia Whelan as head of Barclays Australia and New Zealand, according to Fairfax reports today.

Whelan, a 2012 Telstra Business Women’s Award winner, is one of only a handful of women to reach senior positions in investment banking in Australia. She’s previously declared that the industry is still heavily male-dominated, telling Boss magazine that the sector’s “survival of the fittest” mentality can be destructive to a team environment.

Whelan has had an interesting and varied career. She left school early to become a classical ballet dancer, but went on to study commerce at the University of NSW and a master’s of applied finance at Macquarie University following an injury.

She started in investment banking at UBS in the 1990s, later moving to Merrill Lynch and Westpac before joining Barclays in 2004.

She recently told Women’s Agenda sister publication LeadingCompany that a ballet career shares plenty of similarities with a career in investment banking – including a need for discipline, professionalism, good partnerships, teamwork and flawless execution.

“A lot of the discipline and resilience I learned as a ballerina, I’ve brought to my investment banking career,” she said.

Whelan said her first boss in investment banking, Sharon Mitchell at UBS, had a formidable impact on her career – especially given how rare it was and still is to have such a senior woman in the industry. “I was very fortunate to have a strong female role model,” she said following her Telstra win. “I hope I can be a role model for other women in finance.”

Whelan established Barclays’ debt capital markets business in Australia and worked with the firm in Hong Kong (where she also co-founded Women in Finance Asia) before being named interim CEO of Barclays Australia in 2010, and later being appointed to the position permanently.

She’s acted as a co-chair of Barclays Women’s Initiatives Network for Asia Pacific and represented Barclays on the board of not-for-profit organization Sydney Women’s Fund. She’s also a founding member of Room to Read’s Australian Advisory Board.

According to the Australian Financial Review, Whelan is expected to join a real estate company. Her Chief Executive Women profile outlines that she’s provided strategic advice in a number of different sectors including real estate.

×

Stay Smart! Get Savvy!

Get Women’s Agenda in your inbox