Leadership Through Sport & Business held a guest speaker event last week for our London cohorts. Darren Allaway, Managing Director of UBS Wealth Management, very generously spent his evening speaking to our Young Leaders about his inspirational life and career journey.

Darren told the group about his childhood growing up in Leytonstone, before his world-class basketball talent secured him a scholarship at Stanford University, eventually leading to a professional sporting career.

Following his success as a pro-basketball player, he turned to business and finance and forged a completely new career. Darren spoke about how he first got into Goldman Sachs, ultimately leading to working his way up to where he is now as Managing Director at the global giant UBS.

“It was really great to hear Darren’s story of how he faced various challenges and showed resilience to keep fighting for himself.” Mominul, East London Cohort

The students were especially interested to hear about what it was like entering the workplace as somebody from a different background to most of his colleagues, and what his advice was for building a successful career. Darren’s answer? It’s less about showing how smart you are, and more about putting the effort in and being a fantastic team member.

“I definitely found his advice on attitude to be useful. Now I understand that it’s not necessarily about how intelligent you are or have to be, but more so your eagerness and willingness to learn.” Jessica, North London Cohort

Two LTSB Youth Voice ambassadors, Amrit and Ashley, led the Q&A with Darren and made sure everybody was able to ask the questions on their minds.

Darren’s talk was inspirational and his openness to share his experience left the LTSB Young Leaders with the high aspirations for their future careers.

“He made me realise that you don’t just have to do one thing in life you can move around and still be successful.” Shay, West London Cohort

LTSB is very grateful to White & Case who hosted the event in their fantastic offices.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]