When Phil Suttle arrived at JPMorgan to become global head of foreign exchange research, he didn't need to get acquainted with new colleagues. He had left his position as an economist at the World Bank in Washington for the new post in New York, but having previously spent 13 years at JP Morgan, he still considered his old colleagues as friends.
He joined JP Morgan originally in London in 1988, before transferring to New York in early 1992. Then, after a brief stint at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he moved to the World Bank. And now, at a time when so many talented people are leaving banking to set up hedge funds or do something completely different, he has gone against the trend.
His time away from the firm has provided a marked change of scene, and the opportunity to do things rather than talking about other people doing them, as he puts it.
"Nothing compares to the World Bank," he says, with just a hint of a mid-Atlantic accent in his British voice. "The World Bank is like a financial United Nations, with all the tensions of getting stuff done.