What more proof could there be that banking stays in the blood? After a five-year stint as chairman of the UK's Securities & Investments Board (SIB), Sir Andrew Large is returning to the coal face by becoming Sir Peter Middleton's replacement as deputy chairman at Barclays.
"It's too early for me to hang up my boots," says Large, who is 56 this year. "I always enjoyed working in banking, and it's going to be such an interesting time in the financial services industry that it felt natural for me to gravitate back."
He started his career at British Petroleum. But in the 1970s he moved to Orion Bank, a consortium owned by, among others, Royal Bank of Canada and NatWest, where he specialized in international capital raising and investment advice. But it was in the 1980s that he rose to fame after joining Swiss Bank Corporation. It was Large who was primarily responsible for building up SBC's international capabilities in capital markets and investment banking. By the time he left in 1990, he was an executive member of the board, the first non-Swiss to achieve that rank. Before joining the SIB he was a principal at advisory firm Large, Smith and Water.