45-year-old Brit Anthony Watson is about to own the one thing that so many gay men can only dream off viz. his very own Bank. He is to be the first openly gay CEO of a British Bank that he has also founded……… the Bank of London. Watson says that he has one person goal – to shake up the country’s “pale, male, stale and straight” financial sector.
Watson is the former chief information officer for Europe, Middle East, and global operations at Barclays, and is attempting to break the current dominance of four British banks – his former employer, along with NatWest, Lloyds Banking Group, and HSBC – in the domestic clearing market. He’s put his money where his mouth is and has invested his own money in the new venture but declined to specify how much. He hopes the Bank of London will be bigger than Barclays and HSBC in terms of payment volumes and processes within 10 years.
While Watson is still in talks with regulators in North America and the European Union ahead of the bank’s planned debut, a recent fundraising round valued it at more than $1.1 billion, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
At the moment Watson splits his time between London and New York, having previously been the first non-U.S. citizen to serve on the board of GLAAD. He is a patron of Diversity Role Models, a leading British anti-bullying LGBTQ+ charity, and said an inclusive ethos would be central to the new bank’s hiring procedures.
The new Bank hopes to be accepting clients in 2022, BUT if you were sitting there thinking about ‘marrying your way into the Bank!’ we believe that Mr. Watson is spoken for.
Labels: 2021, Anthony Watson, Bank of London
