Kampik Wan ACSI (pictured above) says that she was the rebel in her family of seven children, although one would never guess it from her quiet demeanour.
The rebellion manifested itself in a refusal to follow her father and older siblings into catering. She says: “He wanted me to be a chef. I love cooking, but I didn’t want to have that life. He worked 24/7 and I never saw him at all.”
Wan, however, found a career that enabled her to be at home at weekends with her own children. By chance, it was a cook who helped her to find the recipe for success.
Entering on a whim
She has worked at Brewin Dolphin for 25 years, where her reputation as an efficient and conscientious troubleshooter helped to win her the fifth annual Mudlark Award for Exceptional Performance at the 2009 Securities Industry Conference - a welcome recognition for someone who entered stockbroking at 17, initially on a whim.
Wan was 12 when she came to the UK from Hong Kong in the early 1970s, moving with her mother and several siblings to join her father and two older brothers in Ilford. Shy and ill at ease with English, Wan sometimes pretended to be ill so that she wouldn’t have to go to school.
After O levels, she and a couple of friends took a typing course at a local secretarial school and - almost as a joke - applied for jobs before it was over. Wan got an interview and, to her surprise, was offered a job to start immediately. When she told them that her course still had two months to go, she was asked to start part-time right away.
She worked for the small stockbroker Fernee Barton for five years and then for another six months at the larger firm that took it over, Greene & Co. In the first job, she undertook a wide range of back-office roles, but there wasn’t the regular variety in the second one. “I was so bored,” she says.
One day, the partners’ cook, who had taken a protective interest told her: “You’re wasted at this firm.” Wan recalls: “She took me out at lunchtime - tricked me, really - dragged me into an agency and said ‘find a job for this girl’.”
That was Wan’s introduction to Brewin Dolphin, where she started in contracts but, within a week, she was offered additional training. Only once was she tempted to go elsewhere. In 1986 - having gone to an interview as a favour to a former employer - she was offered a job for considerably more money and tried to give notice.
Alan Truss was her boss at the time. “He refused to let me go. He tried to talk me out of it and told me to come back the next day to give my decision. I decided to stay.”
Not long afterwards, Wan’s mother was diagnosed with what turned out to be terminal cancer, and Wan was given leave without question. When she returned to work two months later, Truss supported her and talked her through her grief. In such circumstances, loyalty is sealed.
Now an assistant director with a team of six, Wan says: “Whatever the firm asks of me, I will do it 110 per cent. Whoever wants to learn, I always have time for them.” A keen fan of football, she cheerfully uses the game as a metaphor. “I prefer to play at left back or right back, protecting the goal, but I can drive myself forward when it’s necessary.”
Do you have a back office story? Email mudlarklives@hotmail.co.uk
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