Founding Partner at Veritum Partners ( www.veritumpartners.com). Simon retired from his role as a Managing Director at Barclays, based in London, in October 2014 after a 25 year sell side career. In that capacity he was head of the equity research team covering the Western European bank sector, having joined Barclays in 2009 from Citigroup where he fulfilled a similar role for 12 years. At Citigroup and at Barclays his team was ranked in the Top 3 in every major investor survey for a decade and a half, and he was individually ranked the number one bank analyst across Europe in his final three years prior to retirement, according to both the Institutional Investor and Thomson Extel investor surveys. Simon now provides consultancy services to leading banks helping them with their interactions with investors and analysts. He was Co Chair Bank of England group on IFRS 9 Disclosure (Taskforce on Disclosures about Expected Credit Losses), a founder member of the Basel Committee's Financial Stability Board Task Force examining bank financial reporting and sits on several banking think tanks. A former member of the World Economic Forum group examining deleveraging trends globally. Simon is a regularly contributor of opinion pieces in the FT and in other publications. Prior to Citigroup Simon worked at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Merrill Lynch and M&G. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and holds a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.