| Jeremy Amias Managing director and head of European fixed income sales, Salomon Brothers International Among the guest speakers at a seminar for the Association of International Bond Dealers (now isma), in November 1987, in Montreux were two very young executives from Salomon Brothers in London. One was Jeremy Amias, now all of 34 and head of fixed income sales at Salomon in Europe. The other was Michael Lewis who shot to fame as the author of Liar's Poker. Lewis who deified the "big swinging dick" salesman and made Salomon look like a robber baron, is long gone. Amias, whose big swinging attributes were more demurely exhibited, has prospered. With 12 years at Salomon, he is a genuine veteran in a firm renowned for high senior executive turnover. Amias and Salomon met more by luck than judgement. At Cambridge he read classics - hardly the perfect pedigree for a ruthless salesman - and seemed set for a life as a university professor. When finance caught his eye, he wrote to a number of banks, but admits that his presentations "were not literary masterpieces". Even fuddy old National Westminster Bank wrote to him saying it was not sure about his ability "to handle large sums of money". |