Leaders We Deserve

Roger Jenkins, celebrity socialite banker is to start his own consulting firm. His story, and that of his wife Diana, illustrate the glamorous side of international finance

Barclays avoided any government bailout in 2008 by raising £7bn, mainly from investors in the Middle East. A key player was the arbitrage figure Roger Jenkins. Now, regulation of the bonuses of such celebrity bankers may have influenced him to quit and start his own consulting firm [July 2009].

According to City rumours picked up in the media,

The top executives of Barclays have given up their bonuses, but do not expect Roger Jenkins to forgo his…Mr. Jenkins, who runs the hugely profitable tax arbitrage unit of Barclays was the matchmaker between the British banking giant and Middle Eastern investors who put £5.8 billion ($8.6 billion) into Barclays. His looming reward, perhaps more than £30 million (almost $45 million), underscores how much cash-constrained institutions must reward the deal makers crucial to their survival — even at a time of austerity and caution in international banking.

The article goes on to mention a similarly richly-rewarded financial figure of Amanda Staveley who figured in an earlier Leaders We Deserve post as one of the most successful network activators in the business.

In a short space of time, the rumour was confirmed.

It should not come as a surprise that Mr. Jenkins plans to set up his new venture close to his family. It was his wife, Sanela Diana Jenkins, who introduced him in 2006 to Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar and director of its sovereign wealth fund. Mrs. Jenkins is a prominent socialite whose friends include Mick Jagger and Paris Hilton.

A picture emerges of an energetically ambitious couple, the Becks and Posh of banking maybe.

[Note: Becks and Posh aka David and Victoria Beckam, is becoming a short-hand term in the UK for an extreme celebrity liferstyle]

The glamour of banking

Glamour and bankers are not particularly strongly associated. Except maybe in the old idea of the intoxicating effect that loadsamoney has on loadsapeople.

Yet both the Jenkins partnership and Staveley are often mentioned as glamorous figures.

Both are considered to be essential deal-making intermediaries through their skills at winning the trust and friendship of mega-wealthy Middle Eastern figures. They are the superstar performers of banking, and their rewards are those of superstar entertainers. In more humble leadership theory, they have vital skills of network activation.

Acknowledgements

Image of Roger Jenkins from Bad Idea

Image of Sanela Diana Jenkins Sanela Diana Jenkins from UCLA Law School site . but not downloadable from her own website when I tried, [July 21st 2009]

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