Wykeham Journal 2015 | Page 19

on Investment Banking over the past two decades, and I have no wish to invoke Thomas Piketty here. There were stimulating intellectual challenges and the customary compensations, but my near-quartercentury is frankly a blur of dealing rooms, airports and PowerPoint presentations. I was principally employed as an Investment Analyst. Investment Analysts, especially at the turn of the present century, were, for commercial reasons, related to the generation of trading volumes in a particular stock, notorious for what AJP Taylor might have termed ‘extreme views, weakly held.’ Latterly, I co-founded with some innovative software engineers, and for the past eight years have chaired, a British technology company called Lumi Technologies. Lumi has developed a unique and patented technology that fosters interaction and facilitates the expression of opinion and gaining of insight through the mobile device. The technology is deployed in meetings and events, the market research industry and above all in education where it helps draw out the opinions of the reticent yet talented and quietly enthusiastic in the classroom and lecture theatre. Despite my estrangement from Winchester, I have never forgotten nor under-valued the liberal nature of my education, designed to foster an open mind, to inspire the imagination and nurture habits of critical thinking. I knew that Div, in particular, had given me a substantial advantage in life from the moment I went to my Oxford interview. The concept and practice of Div, as the 2014 Wyk