“I was on the board of a bank. My colleagues ruined my career”

I am writing this article from the embers of my career in banking. I know financial services. It’s an industry I worked in for my whole career. But I have become unemployable. 

My fall is something to be studied and learned from. I am writing this anonymously and I don’t want to reveal my identity. Although I was a big fee earner in my area, I rose to the top of a bank by running a function that was not a major revenue generator. I was on the board, but I had no power. The revenue generators ran the show. 

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The firm I worked for had issues and was struggling. As an insider, I could see this very clearly. My colleagues on the board were pursuing strategies that I thought made no sense and that in my opinion were inappropriate for a regulated company. We were embroiled in discrimination cases and were desperate for external funding. 

Eventually, I told the regulator. I became a whistleblower and the case was very slowly investigated. While this was occurring, the bank’s financial situation worsened and I was made redundant.  

I took the bank to court and I won a nominal but not a lifechanging amount of money. For reasons that I cannot share, I could not get the additional settlements usually offered to whistleblowers. 

The stress made me seriously ill. I took time out for my own health. I didn’t tell anyone in the industry about my experiences at the bank, or about the fact that I was pursuing a whistleblowing claim with the regulator. I didn’t want to be considered a troublemaker.

Meanwhile, many of my former colleagues found new jobs. Most are now employed in senior roles elsewhere on high salaries. I have found myself in the opposite situation. I have been blacklisted and am locked out of the market. It seems incredibly unfair. Things that occurred after I left showed that my complaints were valid, and the regulator eventually confirmed this. Again, I cannot share details. 

The moral of my story  is that it pays to say nothing. As was written here last week, it makes sense to keep your head down. If you don’t, you will be punished. None of my former colleagues should be employed in my opinion. And yet, here we are. 

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