Aoifinn Devitt: This podcast was made possible by the kind support of Alvine Capital Management, a London-based specialist investment advisor and placement boutique. Our next guest claims he was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but went on to have a 50-year career in the city. Let’s hear his story and about his late career renaissance that turns things in a truly unexpected direction. I’m Aoifinn N’Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Terry Mellish, who just recently retired from a head of international public policy, diversity and inclusion role at Natixis Investment Managers. Which capped a career in the City that spanned over 50 years. He is continuing as an ambassador of the Diversity Project, where he heads up the disability work stream. Welcome, Terry, thank you for joining me today.
Terry Mellish: Pleasure, thank you very much for talking to me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, first of all, congratulations on your recent retirement and an extraordinary career in the City. I’m sure over the course of 50 years you must have seen some tremendous change. Can we start with your background, where you grew up and how you came to enter the City in the first place?
Terry Mellish: Yes, you’re right about change. I remember I joined what was then called J. Henry Schroeder Wagg Co. Ltd., now just called Schroeder’s or Schroeder Investment Management, in August 1971. You think of those days, there were no computers, there were no iPhones, there was no internet. So everything was manually done. Things like valuations for clients literally had to be typed out and they were huge, enormous, bulky documents. So yeah, it’s been a tremendous change. I grew up in Essex, so I’m an Essex boy through and through. I was born actually in my grandmother’s front room. I came out pretty quickly, unexpectedly. That eventually, when my grandmother died, became my house. It was a council house, so social housing. My mum took over that house when her mum, my grandmother, died, and I lived there until I left, really started work. So it’s a long time ago now, distant memories. But actually, very occasionally, I just— I do take a drive down to see my old house. Still standing, still there. It was a family home for a long time.
Aoifinn Devitt: You had written a blog, a profile piece recently— well, it had been written about you recently— about being born on the wrong side of the tracks. What part of your upbringing was, as you see it, born on the wrong side of the tracks, and how did this affect your experience in the city?
Terry Mellish: Yeah, well, as I said, I was born into what today would be called social housing. So I didn’t really know my father, my dad, he left when I was pretty young. Pretty torrid upbringing, really. One-parent family. I had a younger sister. My mum basically couldn’t work because she had very bad rheumatoid arthritis. I suppose today, again, you’d say we lived in poverty. I was lucky enough to— I didn’t even know I’d taken it. I went and I did an exam at school which turned out to be the 11+. Essex still has grammar schools, and if you pass the 11+, you have an opportunity to go to a grammar school. So I did pass the 11+, I went to a grammar school, but that was weird as well, quite humbling in some ways, because I was probably the only person, or one of just a couple of people, who had free school meals, free uniforms. Because the uniform was only given once every 2 years, my mum used to buy me a blazer, for example, that was too big for me in the first year, so I grew into it in the second year. So, you know, there’s a big stigma to that, and that stigma stuck with me for a long time. When I decided, because we literally had no money, my mum couldn’t work, that I would go out to work after A-levels. So I was very lucky to be introduced to the City by the father of my cousin. Himself ran— he was head of a clearing bank branch in London. He gave me some advice about the City of London, so that was quite fortunate. A lot of kids don’t get that advice or input. We had no careers office in school in those days. He helped me craft letters to what were then called merchant banks. Schroders was a merchant bank. It had lots of services. Today you call it investment banking. They were involved in treasury and trading, FX. Currency, stockbroking, and that sort of thing. So I was very fortunate to be offered two jobs, one by Hambros and one by Schroders. I accepted Schroders because it just felt better, very prestigious office. But as soon as I joined, I realized that it was a completely different world to the one I’d come from as a kid. Schroders in those days had separate loos for directors, a separate director’s dining room, a separate lift for directors and clients. Months to get up and down building. Directors used to get their daily evening paper delivered to their desk. They had tea and china cups delivered to them. It was a completely different world, and Schroders was full of very titled people, and it was a bit of a scary place for somebody like me. So that was what I termed being born on the wrong side of the tracks. So I learned pretty quickly that to make my mark, as it were, I decided to work very, very hard to learn as much as I could to prove myself and to effectively pay Schroders back for offering me a job, because they didn’t offer too many roles to non-graduate entrants. So I was quite fortunate, so I worked very hard to pay them back in some ways.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s interesting because socioeconomic mobility still seems to be one of the problems that the City can’t crack. Do you think you would have the same issues today? To say you’re in a similar circumstance entering the city today, would there be a similar problem of integration?
Terry Mellish: I think it is changing gradually. There are certain initiatives in place because of diversity and inclusion practices and policies which will hopefully open up the world of financial services and asset management, my industry, increasingly so. So for example, one of the things Before I did retire at the end of last year, I wanted to get Natixis to agree to introducing a school leavers policy. So I didn’t go to university. I felt it very, very important that kids, particularly 18-year-olds, maybe 16-year-olds, who know nothing about the City, nothing about how it works, nothing about asset management— if anyone talks about the City, they probably think about banks. And not about anything else. And I was very, very keen to introduce a policy that we would take in 1 or 2 school leavers every year. And I think through things like, you know, 100 Black Interns, which is a great initiative set up by some beautiful people in the city to encourage Black kids to become interns and then hopefully to be offered jobs, and some other initiatives. You know, I think it’s changing gradually, but it’s still very, very difficult for a non-graduate to make their mark and to be introduced to the City. So one of the other things I was wanting to do was to get out into particularly schools, not necessarily universities, but to get out into schools to talk to them about the world of finance, what it means, and particularly in asset management. I remember just a few months ago doing a couple of hours’ presentation to first-year undergraduates at the University of East London, and I did it with a couple of colleagues in Natixis Investment Managers, and it was really an eye-opener because hardly anyone there— and there were about 70 students there— hardly anyone knew anything about asset management and how it touches their daily lives through savings plans, through pensions, through insurance plans, through infrastructure projects, which a lot of asset managers are involved in from a funding or creation perspective. And so asset management does probably touch many, if not all households in the country, but nobody realises that. Shame on our industry for, for getting itself into that position where we’ve not marketed ourselves in the best possible way, I think. So the more that we do that, the more we’re transparent about what we offer, what we do, how we do it, the more that people will understand that it’s not just about managing money. An asset management firm, as we explained, will have— the bigger you are, you’ll have lots and lots of people doing different functions like catering, like, you know, legal compliance. It’s not just about being a portfolio manager. There are a whole plethora of different underlying roles, and we listed 30 of them that we, Natixis Investment Managers, would be able to offer students if they’re interested.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s absolutely true, and I’ve heard that from the student perspective as well. They actually find it a revelation when they see, you know, oh, it isn’t just about numbers and that kind of STEM-type areas, that there is a whole marketing business development function which might be more suited to certain students’ strengths. So I don’t understand why we have done such a poor job, but at least there seems to be a recognition of that now.
Terry Mellish: Diversity of many firms, particularly in asset management, many firms start their diversity journey by looking at gender, but in reality they’re looking at women. And that’s brilliant because women are still today, sadly, seriously underrepresented at the top of firms, you know, C-suite positions or board positions. Things like HR and legal and compliance, maybe marketing particularly, are full of very bright, very talented women. To the investment side, and the industry is doing better, but it’s still Black people in particular seriously underrepresented at the top of firms. That’s why I was keen for Natixis to join the diversity project and why I was keen after I retired, because I’ve already started working on the what’s now called the ability work stream, but when I joined it, it was the disability work stream. I was very, very keen to give something back, if you like, because again, there are lots of talented people in the country who don’t get the opportunity for whatever reason, so I just wanted to give that back, really.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in that ability work stream in the diversity project, is it— it’s not just physical ability that’s being focused on, I understand it’s also neurodiversity and different abilities in that respect?
Terry Mellish: Yeah, there is a mental health work stream as well. They’ve done a lot of fantastic work in recent months, but the ability work stream is working with external bodies, charities, for example, to throw some light on the issues. You know, I was very pleased I posted something on LinkedIn this week about the government’s agreement to give the COVID-19 vaccine to 150,000 people with learning disabilities, but 150,000 is only the people who are actually registered on the government’s learning disability database, if you like. There are hundreds of thousands more who are not registered on that database, so will not necessarily be offered the first vaccination. Why not? You’ve got to ask why not. It’s because people don’t know that they could and should probably register, So that’s a tragedy. So, you know, the point of POST was just to bring some light on that and get firms to consider recruiting people with disabilities. That was the key thing. The head of compliance at Natixis Investment Managers was very keen to actually employ somebody in 2021 with a physical disability such that they would be in a wheelchair. And she and I— she’s actually taken my place formally with Natixis on the ability workstream. I’m just the ambassador for it. That would be a first for us, or us, Natixis Investment Managers in London, because whilst every firm probably has people with disabilities which are not recognized because those people don’t come forward— somebody could have a hearing difficulty which then they don’t talk to anyone about, so they struggle in life, they don’t discuss that, which is quite sad. But, you know, there are plenty of opportunities for firms to do better from a diversity perspective. And again, that’s a legacy I wanted to leave behind. You know, I supported the compliance head as much as I could before I left, and that’s why she was keen to take my place on the ability work stream, because we can all learn from others. You know, nobody’s perfect. One of the things I started to do when I took on this diversity role formally 2 and a half years ago, but informally before that, was to actually talk to people across our industry but outside of our industry as well, just to get a better feel for what maybe constitutes best in class in diversity. I ended up talking to the head of diversity at the British Army, for example, and that was an amazing discussion. When you think of the Army and where it’s come from, and all the armed forces actually, who would have thought that women would be in the Navy as, as, you know, commanding ships? Who would have thought there would be female pilots of jet fighters or female soldiers running teams of soldiers. It’s just incredible how that culture has changed, and it is very much about culture. You can’t be diverse unless you’ve got the proper culture and the proper inclusion policies, because diversity won’t work.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it’s so important that you’re such an active ambassador on the disability or ability side, because that is often an area that is, I think, overlooked, just as it’s not at at the, the forefront of the diversity discussion. So thank you for your ongoing work there. I’m just going back to your career now because it isn’t often that I get somebody on here with half a century of experience in the city, and it really is phenomenal. What were some of the highs and lows of such a long career? Just a few.
Terry Mellish: The high for me, in some ways, I’ve had some fantastic times over the years, and the one thing I tell everybody is that asset management is a very big industry in the UK, but it’s an incredibly friendly industry as well. You know, we know If you’re in the right job, you will get like a sales or marketing job or a consultant relationships job, you’ll get to know a lot of your competitors, and often your competitors become your best friends, which is perverse really in some ways, but we all talk to each other, we share views about what’s going on. You know, you don’t talk about the specifics of your business, but you talk about the way the business is going. Did you see this opportunity, or what do you think about that? ‘What do you think about this trend?’ And that’s tremendous. So it’s a very friendly industry. But, you know, the high for me in some ways was actually joining Natixis Investment Managers. I joined in January 2010. Know, You I spent 33 years at Schroders. So boy, a man, really. But joining Natixis in 2010 was a game changer because they were a big firm globally and still are. Top 15 or 16 in the world when you aggregate the assets of all their underlying affiliate asset managers. But nobody knew of them in London. They had a business in London, but it was largely in the hands of one of the affiliates where most of the money was managed by this affiliate. And a couple of others had clients in London which Natixis didn’t find. So the affiliates used to manage the relationships and Natixis was excluded. So It was a fantastic opportunity, and my boss then was a great French, Hervé Guillemin, and Hervé literally gave me enough rope to hang myself with and checked in with me, kept me on the straight and narrow, but just gave me every encouragement to build a business and a franchise. So that was tremendous. I can’t thank him enough for the opportunities he gave me. I had a lot of roles in that period. Managing businesses in the Middle East and doing a lot of work internationally in places like Asia, managing teams in Europe and the US and so on. And it was brilliant. And I then was given a tremendous opportunity when I was 65 to, to change tack completely. And that’s where I’ve got to thank my last boss, a lady called Tracy Flaherty. Tracy was amazing for me. She was already Global Head of Diversity and Public Affairs or Government Relations, and the opportunity to work with her, because she has a fantastic reputation, was incredible. And she again just gave me every encouragement to go out and do the best thing I could. So when you’ve got bosses like that, it just makes you want to come into work. But conversely, when you have bosses, and I’ve had some of them, who don’t care about you or don’t motivate you in the right way, don’t lead you in the right way, that can be quite demotivating. And that’s why people leave firms. I think people don’t leave firms because they’re unhappy with the firm necessarily. They leave firms because they’re unhappy with their boss.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very well said. I, I, you’re not the first person who said that here, and I think it is more and more focusing on the relationships nurturing and up and down, you know, essentially is what matters. Were there any low points? I mean, the city can be a volatile and cutthroat place at times.
Terry Mellish: Yeah. Well, you know, leaving Schroders in some ways was both a low and a high. Low because I’ve been there for so long. It made me realize there was a huge, big world outside of Schroders. And so I took strong advantage of that. And probably the low for me was the firm that I joined immediately before I left to join Netixis, which unfortunately had quite a large exposure to Bernard Madoff. It was a hedge fund group, an absolute return group. It was amazing at what it offered and what it achieved for clients, but it did have quite a large exposure to Madoff. And after the Madoff scandal broke, it was a desperately difficult place to be in. It was a family-run business. The head of London, who’s no longer there, he’s out of the business now, but he was the nephew of the founder of the firm. And it was a pretty tough— I would say actually gruesome place in many ways, pretty scary place through that period. There’s not much in my long career which has bothered me or troubled me or worried me because I’m not that sort of person. I’ll just get on with it. But that place did worry me, you know. When the TIXs came knocking, it was really funny. When they came knocking, I actually turned them down the first time because I just felt I wanted to go back to my roots, which was a British firm. I’d had enough because I was at Credit Suisse for a while and they had some huge issues as well in asset management. And then I joined another Swiss group and I didn’t want to join a— Natixis is a French-owned group. I didn’t want to join a third foreign group on the trot. But actually, when they came knocking again very shortly afterwards, distribution in those days was based in the US, and he sold it to me. And everybody I met sold it to me. And the model was, and still is, just very compelling. So that was a great opportunity. So there have been some lows, and I’ve been really— the group before Sixes was a scary place after a while and unpleasant.
Aoifinn Devitt: It was a surreal time. I was— I mentioned before on another podcast about, you know, that had the exposure I had to a client who was invested in Madoff, and it was a truly surreal time.
Terry Mellish: Yeah.
Aoifinn Devitt: And trying to explain that circumstance to boards and— Yeah. And just not— it was just hard to get one’s head I around, remember. Now, you mentioned some of the people who were key in your career. Was there any one piece of advice that you received or any creed or motto that you live by?
Terry Mellish: Well, she wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, as it were, but there was a lady at Schroders, Nicola Rawston, who’s still in the industry. She runs her own firm now, consulting firm. Nicola was my boss for a while, and I remember a salutary lesson. Nicola— I quite liked Nicola, I got on well with her. She became head of the UK business, which in those days was basically the cash cow to the whole of the rest of Schroders. It had a, you know, 10-year purple patch, if you like, and was enormously successful. But it was in the days of the old balanced peer group fund, so there are only 3 or 4 meaningful competitors, actually. So every other new business pitch, you were coming up against 1, 2, or 3 of those. But, you know, I remember discussing something with Nicola which she felt was a really good idea, and she invited me along to a UK board meeting. And I just sat there dumb, if you like, because I’d never been in one before. So I didn’t say anything. And afterwards, she absolutely tore me to shreds and said, you know, why didn’t you say anything? You had a great idea. Why didn’t you say anything. That was a lost opportunity. And she said to me, never ever, ever come into a meeting with me again where you don’t talk about your views. She said, because if you don’t, even in a day-to-day conversation, if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I can’t count it in or count it out. So I need everybody’s input to make decisions, to inform me, to, to help strategically. So if, if you don’t say anything You’re useless to me. And that was a really salutary lesson for me. I learned a lot from that. And I told everybody that’s been working for me ever since, never stop asking questions. Don’t make an idiot of yourself. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself, but always be interested. Always ask questions. If you don’t understand, ask questions because nobody will ever learn if you don’t ask questions.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s some excellent advice there. And often probably not easy to hear first time you heard it, but it really is.
Terry Mellish: I know. Yeah, it was in some ways I was still a wet, you know, 9 years, not a kid anymore, but, you know, hadn’t started to rise through the ranks as I ultimately did. And that was a salutary lesson. You know, I still occasionally talk to Nicola. I know her husband very well. That was a big lesson. But also I had— and still, you know, one of my really long-term colleagues is a guy called Julian Samuels. Julian runs his own financial services PR firm now, but he was head of marketing and head of— global head of PR at Schroders. In my time. He was my boss for a little while, and he and I are still best friends. Was, you know, we still talk to each other. He again was one who gave me every opportunity, just let me get on with it. And he often said to me, I can’t do this job without you. And Tracy Flaherty actually has said the same thing. When your boss tells you those sorts of things, it’s incredible how motivating that is, you know, when somebody tells you that they can’t do this without you. It doesn’t make you big-headed, but it just makes you want to come back for more. I don’t think— until— there was never a day at Natixis I didn’t want to be in the office, and I was basically the first in the office. You know, I live nearly 70 miles away from London, but I was always in the office sometime, you know, between half past 6 and 6:45 or something. So, you know, it’s because I wanted to be in the office.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s an early start for sure. I must have been at 4:30, 5 o’clock start.
Terry Mellish: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 4 o’clock for a while. Yeah, but people thought I was mad, but I just wanted to do it because it was brilliant. You know, I just wanted to be there and get cracking because there was a lot to do and it was great doing it.
Aoifinn Devitt: What an inspiration that, that is. And my last question is around any advice you would have for your younger self after a career of 50 years. If you were to look back at that young boy entering the city, is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known then?
Terry Mellish: Well, I would say I wanted to be committed. I wanted to— it was almost like imposter syndrome. There is a saying in diversity arena called imposter syndrome, which means for me it was you always, know, somebody’s going to find me out, somebody’s going to realize I didn’t go to university or didn’t have any professional qualifications. Somebody will find me out one day and I’ll be out of a job. So because of that, I always worked hard to prove myself. So, you know, I would just say to people, you need to be committed, you need to be honest, but you shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes because you can learn from mistakes. As long as you, you learn from your mistakes, that’s the best thing you can do. Just do the best you can, don’t worry about making mistakes, and if you learn from those mistakes, you’ll be a better person for us, and the business will be better and improve as well. And also I learned, yeah, when I changed my role completely when I was 65, it’s never too late to learn, it’s never too late to change. And I have to say, moving into a diversity role at Natixis for me was a game changer, Aoifinn. It just changed my life. It was just re-energizing. It was amazing. And I would encourage people never to be daunted by the opportunities that are out there because they’re out there if you want them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a wonderful note on which to end this, and the image of you going back to your childhood home has been in my mind since you mentioned it about half an hour ago, and I was wondering, well, what would that do? I suppose the sense of permanence, the sense of connection, and for me, you have been a great source of connection and permanence in the industry, and this has been a year of great loss, and I’ll admit feeling a sense of loss when I saw your retirement announcement on LinkedIn I’m delighted to see that we haven’t lost you entirely, you’re still quite engaged, and maybe one of the silver linings of COVID is that it will take a little bit longer before you can take off on that retirement world tour.
Terry Mellish: I’m not sure you that, know, after 50 years my wife is desperately happy for me to still be doing stuff because she said the whole point of retiring is to retire, and she’s you know. Right, So even before I left Natixis, I had 6 or 7 or 8 people talk to me about a potential role for them. Accepting the diversity Ambassador role, the Diversity Project Ambassador role, was a no-brainer because, you know, it was just something I wanted to do, and for personal reasons that was, that was just great for me. And I’ve actually got a discussion on Monday or Tuesday with a group which is equally involved in a really brilliant way in, in the diversity arena, and they want to talk to me about something. And somebody wants me to accept a director role for a charity as well, which I’m actively looking at. But I’m very conscious I do need to retire. I am 68 now, and so at some stage I will need to retire. But equally, I need need to, I to get my head around what retirement’s all about, because it’s only been 2 months and it’s been in lockdown. So retiring into lockdown is probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, I think that the evidence of it, how much people want your involvement, is a sign that you really do reap what you sow. So thank you, Terry. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you for sharing all of these insights with us.
Terry Mellish: Pleasure. And thank you for asking me, Aoifinn. It’s been very, very welcoming. Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. And all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This podcast was made possible by the kind support of Alvine Capital Management, a London-based specialist investment advisor and placement boutique. Our next guest claims he was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but went on to have a 50-year career in the city. Let’s hear his story and about his late career renaissance that turns things in a truly unexpected direction. I’m Aoifinn N’Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Terry Mellish, who just recently retired from a head of international public policy, diversity and inclusion role at Natixis Investment Managers. Which capped a career in the City that spanned over 50 years. He is continuing as an ambassador of the Diversity Project, where he heads up the disability work stream. Welcome, Terry, thank you for joining me today.
Terry Mellish: Pleasure, thank you very much for talking to me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, first of all, congratulations on your recent retirement and an extraordinary career in the City. I’m sure over the course of 50 years you must have seen some tremendous change. Can we start with your background, where you grew up and how you came to enter the City in the first place?
Terry Mellish: Yes, you’re right about change. I remember I joined what was then called J. Henry Schroeder Wagg Co. Ltd., now just called Schroeder’s or Schroeder Investment Management, in August 1971. You think of those days, there were no computers, there were no iPhones, there was no internet. So everything was manually done. Things like valuations for clients literally had to be typed out and they were huge, enormous, bulky documents. So yeah, it’s been a tremendous change. I grew up in Essex, so I’m an Essex boy through and through. I was born actually in my grandmother’s front room. I came out pretty quickly, unexpectedly. That eventually, when my grandmother died, became my house. It was a council house, so social housing. My mum took over that house when her mum, my grandmother, died, and I lived there until I left, really started work. So it’s a long time ago now, distant memories. But actually, very occasionally, I just— I do take a drive down to see my old house. Still standing, still there. It was a family home for a long time.
Aoifinn Devitt: You had written a blog, a profile piece recently— well, it had been written about you recently— about being born on the wrong side of the tracks. What part of your upbringing was, as you see it, born on the wrong side of the tracks, and how did this affect your experience in the city?
Terry Mellish: Yeah, well, as I said, I was born into what today would be called social housing. So I didn’t really know my father, my dad, he left when I was pretty young. Pretty torrid upbringing, really. One-parent family. I had a younger sister. My mum basically couldn’t work because she had very bad rheumatoid arthritis. I suppose today, again, you’d say we lived in poverty. I was lucky enough to— I didn’t even know I’d taken it. I went and I did an exam at school which turned out to be the 11+. Essex still has grammar schools, and if you pass the 11+, you have an opportunity to go to a grammar school. So I did pass the 11+, I went to a grammar school, but that was weird as well, quite humbling in some ways, because I was probably the only person, or one of just a couple of people, who had free school meals, free uniforms. Because the uniform was only given once every 2 years, my mum used to buy me a blazer, for example, that was too big for me in the first year, so I grew into it in the second year. So, you know, there’s a big stigma to that, and that stigma stuck with me for a long time. When I decided, because we literally had no money, my mum couldn’t work, that I would go out to work after A-levels. So I was very lucky to be introduced to the City by the father of my cousin. Himself ran— he was head of a clearing bank branch in London. He gave me some advice about the City of London, so that was quite fortunate. A lot of kids don’t get that advice or input. We had no careers office in school in those days. He helped me craft letters to what were then called merchant banks. Schroders was a merchant bank. It had lots of services. Today you call it investment banking. They were involved in treasury and trading, FX. Currency, stockbroking, and that sort of thing. So I was very fortunate to be offered two jobs, one by Hambros and one by Schroders. I accepted Schroders because it just felt better, very prestigious office. But as soon as I joined, I realized that it was a completely different world to the one I’d come from as a kid. Schroders in those days had separate loos for directors, a separate director’s dining room, a separate lift for directors and clients. Months to get up and down building. Directors used to get their daily evening paper delivered to their desk. They had tea and china cups delivered to them. It was a completely different world, and Schroders was full of very titled people, and it was a bit of a scary place for somebody like me. So that was what I termed being born on the wrong side of the tracks. So I learned pretty quickly that to make my mark, as it were, I decided to work very, very hard to learn as much as I could to prove myself and to effectively pay Schroders back for offering me a job, because they didn’t offer too many roles to non-graduate entrants. So I was quite fortunate, so I worked very hard to pay them back in some ways.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s interesting because socioeconomic mobility still seems to be one of the problems that the City can’t crack. Do you think you would have the same issues today? To say you’re in a similar circumstance entering the city today, would there be a similar problem of integration?
Terry Mellish: I think it is changing gradually. There are certain initiatives in place because of diversity and inclusion practices and policies which will hopefully open up the world of financial services and asset management, my industry, increasingly so. So for example, one of the things Before I did retire at the end of last year, I wanted to get Natixis to agree to introducing a school leavers policy. So I didn’t go to university. I felt it very, very important that kids, particularly 18-year-olds, maybe 16-year-olds, who know nothing about the City, nothing about how it works, nothing about asset management— if anyone talks about the City, they probably think about banks. And not about anything else. And I was very, very keen to introduce a policy that we would take in 1 or 2 school leavers every year. And I think through things like, you know, 100 Black Interns, which is a great initiative set up by some beautiful people in the city to encourage Black kids to become interns and then hopefully to be offered jobs, and some other initiatives. You know, I think it’s changing gradually, but it’s still very, very difficult for a non-graduate to make their mark and to be introduced to the City. So one of the other things I was wanting to do was to get out into particularly schools, not necessarily universities, but to get out into schools to talk to them about the world of finance, what it means, and particularly in asset management. I remember just a few months ago doing a couple of hours’ presentation to first-year undergraduates at the University of East London, and I did it with a couple of colleagues in Natixis Investment Managers, and it was really an eye-opener because hardly anyone there— and there were about 70 students there— hardly anyone knew anything about asset management and how it touches their daily lives through savings plans, through pensions, through insurance plans, through infrastructure projects, which a lot of asset managers are involved in from a funding or creation perspective. And so asset management does probably touch many, if not all households in the country, but nobody realises that. Shame on our industry for, for getting itself into that position where we’ve not marketed ourselves in the best possible way, I think. So the more that we do that, the more we’re transparent about what we offer, what we do, how we do it, the more that people will understand that it’s not just about managing money. An asset management firm, as we explained, will have— the bigger you are, you’ll have lots and lots of people doing different functions like catering, like, you know, legal compliance. It’s not just about being a portfolio manager. There are a whole plethora of different underlying roles, and we listed 30 of them that we, Natixis Investment Managers, would be able to offer students if they’re interested.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s absolutely true, and I’ve heard that from the student perspective as well. They actually find it a revelation when they see, you know, oh, it isn’t just about numbers and that kind of STEM-type areas, that there is a whole marketing business development function which might be more suited to certain students’ strengths. So I don’t understand why we have done such a poor job, but at least there seems to be a recognition of that now.
Terry Mellish: Diversity of many firms, particularly in asset management, many firms start their diversity journey by looking at gender, but in reality they’re looking at women. And that’s brilliant because women are still today, sadly, seriously underrepresented at the top of firms, you know, C-suite positions or board positions. Things like HR and legal and compliance, maybe marketing particularly, are full of very bright, very talented women. To the investment side, and the industry is doing better, but it’s still Black people in particular seriously underrepresented at the top of firms. That’s why I was keen for Natixis to join the diversity project and why I was keen after I retired, because I’ve already started working on the what’s now called the ability work stream, but when I joined it, it was the disability work stream. I was very, very keen to give something back, if you like, because again, there are lots of talented people in the country who don’t get the opportunity for whatever reason, so I just wanted to give that back, really.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in that ability work stream in the diversity project, is it— it’s not just physical ability that’s being focused on, I understand it’s also neurodiversity and different abilities in that respect?
Terry Mellish: Yeah, there is a mental health work stream as well. They’ve done a lot of fantastic work in recent months, but the ability work stream is working with external bodies, charities, for example, to throw some light on the issues. You know, I was very pleased I posted something on LinkedIn this week about the government’s agreement to give the COVID-19 vaccine to 150,000 people with learning disabilities, but 150,000 is only the people who are actually registered on the government’s learning disability database, if you like. There are hundreds of thousands more who are not registered on that database, so will not necessarily be offered the first vaccination. Why not? You’ve got to ask why not. It’s because people don’t know that they could and should probably register, So that’s a tragedy. So, you know, the point of POST was just to bring some light on that and get firms to consider recruiting people with disabilities. That was the key thing. The head of compliance at Natixis Investment Managers was very keen to actually employ somebody in 2021 with a physical disability such that they would be in a wheelchair. And she and I— she’s actually taken my place formally with Natixis on the ability workstream. I’m just the ambassador for it. That would be a first for us, or us, Natixis Investment Managers in London, because whilst every firm probably has people with disabilities which are not recognized because those people don’t come forward— somebody could have a hearing difficulty which then they don’t talk to anyone about, so they struggle in life, they don’t discuss that, which is quite sad. But, you know, there are plenty of opportunities for firms to do better from a diversity perspective. And again, that’s a legacy I wanted to leave behind. You know, I supported the compliance head as much as I could before I left, and that’s why she was keen to take my place on the ability work stream, because we can all learn from others. You know, nobody’s perfect. One of the things I started to do when I took on this diversity role formally 2 and a half years ago, but informally before that, was to actually talk to people across our industry but outside of our industry as well, just to get a better feel for what maybe constitutes best in class in diversity. I ended up talking to the head of diversity at the British Army, for example, and that was an amazing discussion. When you think of the Army and where it’s come from, and all the armed forces actually, who would have thought that women would be in the Navy as, as, you know, commanding ships? Who would have thought there would be female pilots of jet fighters or female soldiers running teams of soldiers. It’s just incredible how that culture has changed, and it is very much about culture. You can’t be diverse unless you’ve got the proper culture and the proper inclusion policies, because diversity won’t work.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it’s so important that you’re such an active ambassador on the disability or ability side, because that is often an area that is, I think, overlooked, just as it’s not at at the, the forefront of the diversity discussion. So thank you for your ongoing work there. I’m just going back to your career now because it isn’t often that I get somebody on here with half a century of experience in the city, and it really is phenomenal. What were some of the highs and lows of such a long career? Just a few.
Terry Mellish: The high for me, in some ways, I’ve had some fantastic times over the years, and the one thing I tell everybody is that asset management is a very big industry in the UK, but it’s an incredibly friendly industry as well. You know, we know If you’re in the right job, you will get like a sales or marketing job or a consultant relationships job, you’ll get to know a lot of your competitors, and often your competitors become your best friends, which is perverse really in some ways, but we all talk to each other, we share views about what’s going on. You know, you don’t talk about the specifics of your business, but you talk about the way the business is going. Did you see this opportunity, or what do you think about that? ‘What do you think about this trend?’ And that’s tremendous. So it’s a very friendly industry. But, you know, the high for me in some ways was actually joining Natixis Investment Managers. I joined in January 2010. Know, You I spent 33 years at Schroders. So boy, a man, really. But joining Natixis in 2010 was a game changer because they were a big firm globally and still are. Top 15 or 16 in the world when you aggregate the assets of all their underlying affiliate asset managers. But nobody knew of them in London. They had a business in London, but it was largely in the hands of one of the affiliates where most of the money was managed by this affiliate. And a couple of others had clients in London which Natixis didn’t find. So the affiliates used to manage the relationships and Natixis was excluded. So It was a fantastic opportunity, and my boss then was a great French, Hervé Guillemin, and Hervé literally gave me enough rope to hang myself with and checked in with me, kept me on the straight and narrow, but just gave me every encouragement to build a business and a franchise. So that was tremendous. I can’t thank him enough for the opportunities he gave me. I had a lot of roles in that period. Managing businesses in the Middle East and doing a lot of work internationally in places like Asia, managing teams in Europe and the US and so on. And it was brilliant. And I then was given a tremendous opportunity when I was 65 to, to change tack completely. And that’s where I’ve got to thank my last boss, a lady called Tracy Flaherty. Tracy was amazing for me. She was already Global Head of Diversity and Public Affairs or Government Relations, and the opportunity to work with her, because she has a fantastic reputation, was incredible. And she again just gave me every encouragement to go out and do the best thing I could. So when you’ve got bosses like that, it just makes you want to come into work. But conversely, when you have bosses, and I’ve had some of them, who don’t care about you or don’t motivate you in the right way, don’t lead you in the right way, that can be quite demotivating. And that’s why people leave firms. I think people don’t leave firms because they’re unhappy with the firm necessarily. They leave firms because they’re unhappy with their boss.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very well said. I, I, you’re not the first person who said that here, and I think it is more and more focusing on the relationships nurturing and up and down, you know, essentially is what matters. Were there any low points? I mean, the city can be a volatile and cutthroat place at times.
Terry Mellish: Yeah. Well, you know, leaving Schroders in some ways was both a low and a high. Low because I’ve been there for so long. It made me realize there was a huge, big world outside of Schroders. And so I took strong advantage of that. And probably the low for me was the firm that I joined immediately before I left to join Netixis, which unfortunately had quite a large exposure to Bernard Madoff. It was a hedge fund group, an absolute return group. It was amazing at what it offered and what it achieved for clients, but it did have quite a large exposure to Madoff. And after the Madoff scandal broke, it was a desperately difficult place to be in. It was a family-run business. The head of London, who’s no longer there, he’s out of the business now, but he was the nephew of the founder of the firm. And it was a pretty tough— I would say actually gruesome place in many ways, pretty scary place through that period. There’s not much in my long career which has bothered me or troubled me or worried me because I’m not that sort of person. I’ll just get on with it. But that place did worry me, you know. When the TIXs came knocking, it was really funny. When they came knocking, I actually turned them down the first time because I just felt I wanted to go back to my roots, which was a British firm. I’d had enough because I was at Credit Suisse for a while and they had some huge issues as well in asset management. And then I joined another Swiss group and I didn’t want to join a— Natixis is a French-owned group. I didn’t want to join a third foreign group on the trot. But actually, when they came knocking again very shortly afterwards, distribution in those days was based in the US, and he sold it to me. And everybody I met sold it to me. And the model was, and still is, just very compelling. So that was a great opportunity. So there have been some lows, and I’ve been really— the group before Sixes was a scary place after a while and unpleasant.
Aoifinn Devitt: It was a surreal time. I was— I mentioned before on another podcast about, you know, that had the exposure I had to a client who was invested in Madoff, and it was a truly surreal time.
Terry Mellish: Yeah.
Aoifinn Devitt: And trying to explain that circumstance to boards and— Yeah. And just not— it was just hard to get one’s head I around, remember. Now, you mentioned some of the people who were key in your career. Was there any one piece of advice that you received or any creed or motto that you live by?
Terry Mellish: Well, she wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, as it were, but there was a lady at Schroders, Nicola Rawston, who’s still in the industry. She runs her own firm now, consulting firm. Nicola was my boss for a while, and I remember a salutary lesson. Nicola— I quite liked Nicola, I got on well with her. She became head of the UK business, which in those days was basically the cash cow to the whole of the rest of Schroders. It had a, you know, 10-year purple patch, if you like, and was enormously successful. But it was in the days of the old balanced peer group fund, so there are only 3 or 4 meaningful competitors, actually. So every other new business pitch, you were coming up against 1, 2, or 3 of those. But, you know, I remember discussing something with Nicola which she felt was a really good idea, and she invited me along to a UK board meeting. And I just sat there dumb, if you like, because I’d never been in one before. So I didn’t say anything. And afterwards, she absolutely tore me to shreds and said, you know, why didn’t you say anything? You had a great idea. Why didn’t you say anything. That was a lost opportunity. And she said to me, never ever, ever come into a meeting with me again where you don’t talk about your views. She said, because if you don’t, even in a day-to-day conversation, if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I can’t count it in or count it out. So I need everybody’s input to make decisions, to inform me, to, to help strategically. So if, if you don’t say anything You’re useless to me. And that was a really salutary lesson for me. I learned a lot from that. And I told everybody that’s been working for me ever since, never stop asking questions. Don’t make an idiot of yourself. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself, but always be interested. Always ask questions. If you don’t understand, ask questions because nobody will ever learn if you don’t ask questions.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s some excellent advice there. And often probably not easy to hear first time you heard it, but it really is.
Terry Mellish: I know. Yeah, it was in some ways I was still a wet, you know, 9 years, not a kid anymore, but, you know, hadn’t started to rise through the ranks as I ultimately did. And that was a salutary lesson. You know, I still occasionally talk to Nicola. I know her husband very well. That was a big lesson. But also I had— and still, you know, one of my really long-term colleagues is a guy called Julian Samuels. Julian runs his own financial services PR firm now, but he was head of marketing and head of— global head of PR at Schroders. In my time. He was my boss for a little while, and he and I are still best friends. Was, you know, we still talk to each other. He again was one who gave me every opportunity, just let me get on with it. And he often said to me, I can’t do this job without you. And Tracy Flaherty actually has said the same thing. When your boss tells you those sorts of things, it’s incredible how motivating that is, you know, when somebody tells you that they can’t do this without you. It doesn’t make you big-headed, but it just makes you want to come back for more. I don’t think— until— there was never a day at Natixis I didn’t want to be in the office, and I was basically the first in the office. You know, I live nearly 70 miles away from London, but I was always in the office sometime, you know, between half past 6 and 6:45 or something. So, you know, it’s because I wanted to be in the office.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s an early start for sure. I must have been at 4:30, 5 o’clock start.
Terry Mellish: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 4 o’clock for a while. Yeah, but people thought I was mad, but I just wanted to do it because it was brilliant. You know, I just wanted to be there and get cracking because there was a lot to do and it was great doing it.
Aoifinn Devitt: What an inspiration that, that is. And my last question is around any advice you would have for your younger self after a career of 50 years. If you were to look back at that young boy entering the city, is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known then?
Terry Mellish: Well, I would say I wanted to be committed. I wanted to— it was almost like imposter syndrome. There is a saying in diversity arena called imposter syndrome, which means for me it was you always, know, somebody’s going to find me out, somebody’s going to realize I didn’t go to university or didn’t have any professional qualifications. Somebody will find me out one day and I’ll be out of a job. So because of that, I always worked hard to prove myself. So, you know, I would just say to people, you need to be committed, you need to be honest, but you shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes because you can learn from mistakes. As long as you, you learn from your mistakes, that’s the best thing you can do. Just do the best you can, don’t worry about making mistakes, and if you learn from those mistakes, you’ll be a better person for us, and the business will be better and improve as well. And also I learned, yeah, when I changed my role completely when I was 65, it’s never too late to learn, it’s never too late to change. And I have to say, moving into a diversity role at Natixis for me was a game changer, Aoifinn. It just changed my life. It was just re-energizing. It was amazing. And I would encourage people never to be daunted by the opportunities that are out there because they’re out there if you want them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a wonderful note on which to end this, and the image of you going back to your childhood home has been in my mind since you mentioned it about half an hour ago, and I was wondering, well, what would that do? I suppose the sense of permanence, the sense of connection, and for me, you have been a great source of connection and permanence in the industry, and this has been a year of great loss, and I’ll admit feeling a sense of loss when I saw your retirement announcement on LinkedIn I’m delighted to see that we haven’t lost you entirely, you’re still quite engaged, and maybe one of the silver linings of COVID is that it will take a little bit longer before you can take off on that retirement world tour.
Terry Mellish: I’m not sure you that, know, after 50 years my wife is desperately happy for me to still be doing stuff because she said the whole point of retiring is to retire, and she’s you know. Right, So even before I left Natixis, I had 6 or 7 or 8 people talk to me about a potential role for them. Accepting the diversity Ambassador role, the Diversity Project Ambassador role, was a no-brainer because, you know, it was just something I wanted to do, and for personal reasons that was, that was just great for me. And I’ve actually got a discussion on Monday or Tuesday with a group which is equally involved in a really brilliant way in, in the diversity arena, and they want to talk to me about something. And somebody wants me to accept a director role for a charity as well, which I’m actively looking at. But I’m very conscious I do need to retire. I am 68 now, and so at some stage I will need to retire. But equally, I need need to, I to get my head around what retirement’s all about, because it’s only been 2 months and it’s been in lockdown. So retiring into lockdown is probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, I think that the evidence of it, how much people want your involvement, is a sign that you really do reap what you sow. So thank you, Terry. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you for sharing all of these insights with us.
Terry Mellish: Pleasure. And thank you for asking me, Aoifinn. It’s been very, very welcoming. Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. And all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
