Working in finance often evokes images of bustling trading floors and ruthless dealmakers straight out of a Hollywood movie. But talking with three senior leaders – alumna Alexandra Wyatt and current parents Ros Price and Jan Woods – a different picture emerges. While their days can be intense, they emphasise that modern finance is fundamentally a people-business.

Alumna Alexandra Wyatt (DH 2009) is Executive Director at J.P. Morgan where she supports high-growth technology businesses across the innovation sector. She works closely with founders and investors to structure tailored equity and debt financing solutions, supporting companies as they scale from early growth through to institutional maturity. Alexandra helps entrepreneurs navigate moments of rapid change – whether raising capital, entering new markets or preparing for growth. At its heart, it’s about backing people and ideas she believes in.

Ros Price is Managing Director at Blue Owl Capital and member of the Private Wealth Team. Ros oversees business development for Blue Owl’s Private Wealth business across the UK, Europe and Middle East. She is responsible for fundraising, expanding strategic partnerships, and identifying innovative solutions for high-net-worth clients and their advisors. Her typical day centres on conversations with clients, colleagues and her team, and success depends on building lasting relationships.

Jan Woods is a Partner at Oakley Capital where she is responsible for company talent. She previously spent 20 years at IBM International and PepsiCo working across international markets and her corporate background made the transition into investment surprisingly natural – understanding growth, agility and teams translates across sectors. Jan advises teams on how to attract and retain the best talent, build high-performing organisations and support talent through periods of growth and transformation. Her firm works closely with founders to grow their companies.

A ‘Typical’ Day

For Ros, most days are built around conversations. She speaks constantly with clients and with her team, helping organisations think through possibilities and solve problems. Having started her career at Goldman Sachs, she understands where the stereotypes come from. But she is quick to dispel them. “Things can get heated at times,” she says, “but it's not that whirlwind that you see in movies like Wall Street.” Instead, her work is calm, focused and purposeful rather than frenetic.

Alexandra describes three parts to her role. First, she meets fast-growth companies to understand their aspirations and the financing they need to make it happen. Second, she spends time learning – absorbing developments in global markets, technology and geopolitics: “I love that I get to spend time understanding what's happening in the world as part of my job.” Third, she closes deals, working alongside lawyers and advisers to bring deals over the line.

Jan’s days are focused on talking to potential founders who want to invest or co-invest with her firm, building relationships and trust. Oakley Capital invests in companies with the aim of helping them become three or four times more valuable, offering investors long-term returns in excess of the FTSE All-Share Index.

No Single Route In

One of the strongest themes across their stories is the absence of a master plan.

After 20 years at PepsiCo, where Jan worked across emerging markets and built international teams, she transitioned into investment easily. The shift felt natural. Growth is growth – whether in a multinational or a scaling start-up. Jan describes herself as opportunistic. Her career evolved by backing herself and stepping into opportunities. “If the work is interesting and the people are good, say yes,” she advises. You can always change direction if something isn’t right.

For Ros finance felt familiar because her father worked in the industry. But after university, she travelled solo through Central and South America and had planned more adventures in Asia. But after landing a role at Goldman Sachs in London, she realised the opportunity was too good to walk away. Later, she briefly considered a move away from sales, but a mentor’s advice changed her thinking: her natural strengths are rare. She leaned in – and never looked back.

Alexandra didn’t grow up imagining a career in banking. Few girls in her year did. But she discovered the breadth on offer. From working with entrepreneurs, to navigating major market disruptions – including a period during one of the largest banking collapses. When she’s faced setbacks like these, she learned a lasting lesson: keep going. Challenges don’t just test you; they strengthen resilience and cultivate empathy and perspective.

A People-Business, Above All

Despite the technical reputation of finance, all three emphasise that it is fundamentally about people.

Ros said while some roles are highly numerate, there’s also marketing, HR, legal, sales, strategy – there’s something for everyone. And even in the most numbers-driven roles, trust and communication underpin success.

Alexandra agrees. While technical literacy and confidence with data matter, the ability to connect with a wide range of people is critical. When she was growing up, coding was heralded as the must-have skill. But today, artificial intelligence can perform many technical tasks like this. What remains uniquely human is judgement, relationship-building and critical thinking – particularly when evaluating which ideas are likely to succeed in practice, and therefore which businesses to back.

Jan adds that academic background is less determinative than students might assume. Some financiers studied PPE at Oxford, but others read English or social sciences, and some did not attend university at all. Firms look for strong fundamentals – competence in maths and communication – but rarely obsess over specific degrees. What matters more is attitude: working hard, going the extra mile and demonstrating genuine interest.

Resilience, Rejection and the Long Game

If one quality unites their careers, it is resilience.

The nature of Ros’s sales role means she hears “no” a lot. Developing a thick skin is essential. But those rejections make the eventual “yes” even more rewarding.

Alexandra received lots of rejections early on, yet some of her greatest successes have followed setbacks. Failure, she argues, is not just inevitable but instructive. Two years of persistence paid off when she landed her first internship at the Financial Times. “Play the long game, it will get better” she advises. And when that long-awaited “yes” finally comes, turn up on time, do your best work and show you care.

Ros believes that stretching yourself – especially when it feels uncomfortable – accelerates growth. Earlier in her career, she was reluctant to take a risk unless she felt almost certain she could do everything a job demanded. Meanwhile, many of their male peers would apply when they met only half the criteria. This was a key lesson. Since then she has found the greatest rewards come from stretching beyond her comfort zone.

Jan reflected that not every deal makes it through an investment committee. But each near miss leaves you better prepared for the next time. And with careers of 40 years or more ahead, she urged our girls to lean in and go for it: “dream big, make it happen.”

Women in Finance: Progress and Perspective

All three acknowledge how much things have changed for women in finance, and with greater representation and shifting mindsets, the outlook for women has never been more promising. The culture is more inclusive and family friendly than it was in the 1990s, when long hours were often worn as a badge of honour. Firms now strive for gender balance and actively support working parents.

Yet challenges remain. Women are still underrepresented at senior levels, and mid-career attrition – when starting families – remains an issue. Ros spoke candidly about the difficulty of balancing ambition with motherhood, and the vital importance of good communication at home. Jan emphasises the importance of organisation, creating a support network and designing a model that works for you. At times, her career required extensive travel while her husband lived abroad, but practical solutions made it possible.

Alexandra believes it’s critical that women don’t rule themselves out. It’s often limiting beliefs that are more restrictive than external barriers – shaped more by self-doubt than circumstance. She reflected that many of the world’s most successful companies were built by founders who were underestimated. Women, too, can thrive by refusing to accept the limits others – or they themselves – place on them.

A Global Mindset in a Disrupted World

When asked how artificial intelligence will reshape the industry, Ros was honest: no one truly knows. Some jobs will be displaced, but new ones will emerge. The safest strategy is to cultivate adaptability: work out what you enjoy, take risks and keep your options open.

Global experience can be another differentiator. All three had worked internationally early on in their careers which helped broaden their perspectives. Jan lived in many countries as a child, “restlessness was almost in my blood.” Ros taught skiing abroad in a foreign language. Alexandra spent a year in China, gaining invaluable insight into how people approach problems in diverse ways, “there’s lots of different ways of approaching the same problem.” By appreciating multiple perspectives, she learned that challenges can be tackled more creatively, thoughtfully and effectively.

Breaking into Finance

For aspiring interns, their advice is practical and direct: seek experience early, however small. Be punctual. Prepare thoroughly. Be authentic. Network thoughtfully – not necessarily always asking for a job or placement – by listening and learning from others’ experience, you’ll be better equipped to land one next time you are interviewed.

Ultimately, their message was finance isn’t a monolithic industry reserved only for number-crunchers. It’s a broad, evolving ecosystem powered by relationships, authenticity and persistence. For those prepared to push beyond their comfort zone, accept rejection and play the long game, it offers not only financial reward but the chance to grow wealth for the future and help leaders build businesses that improve the way we live.