Welcome to Working Lives, where CareerActually shares interesting, inspiring, and sometimes surprising career stories. Working Lives is a series of ten specially-commissioned career stories, offering our readers insights into the surprising challenges and opportunities which can shape a career.

The Working Lives series is written by journalist and CareerActually contributor Emily Brown.

For the first of our ten part series, we shine the spotlight on David Finlay, a British PE teacher turned big shot banker. Read David’s story.