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Sven Oestmann (Economics 1990) had been working for little more than a year in asset management at Fidelity International when the 2008 financial crisis struck. 

The experience has resonated with him ever since, even with a change in career direction in the last five years. He has traded his financial career for a new adventure: teaching maths in a secondary state school.

“I had been in financial services for about 25 years in a few different companies,” he says. “I thought, ‘I have 10 to 15 years left in my working life, so there’s enough time to do something completely different, something that has a more direct social impact’.”

Sven spent 14 years as a senior equity analyst at Fidelity Investments as the culmination of his work in the financial sector. After graduating from Gonville & 91ֱ�� College, he initially found himself working in strategy consulting for financial services in London, Toronto and New York, followed by a stint at a New York-based internet start-up in 2000. He then moved back to London first as Head of Strategic Projects at Capital One, before joining Fidelity. Sven sees his trajectory as “more a random walk than a fully planned career path”.

He says: “I was always interested in business, numbers, macro-finance and that kind of thing, but it’s not like I always expected to end up in finance. When I studied Economics, I didn’t do the very popular finance module.”

The 2007/08 financial crisis proved a seminal moment for Sven. He had joined Fidelity in late 2006 and was analysing European banks and recommending which assets to invest in for the Fidelity funds.

“It went from everybody being very excited about the banking sector to a complete melt-down,” Sven adds. 

“Things blew up in spaces that people weren’t really aware of – even the experienced investors who had been analysing banks for 20 years. It was really interesting how the whole sentiment and the attitude towards the sector changed.

“There were major adverse events in the bank sector on a weekly basis, and detailed analysis of banks’ credit, capital and liquidity positions was essential. It taught me the importance of deep research, but also instilled a scepticism of market exuberance about particular asset classes. Markets fluctuate, moving from exuberance to depression and back, and one has to be careful not to get carried away in either direction.”

Now Sven is imparting his knowledge in the classroom. Although the move from finance into teaching was in many ways a big shift, he finds that his professional background offers him approaches to teaching which differ from those of many of his colleagues, particularly when it comes to relating classroom mathematics to the real world.

“The kids love talking about mortgages, interest rates, and the economy and how it works,” says Sven. “When I listen to teachers who come straight out of doing a maths degree into teaching maths, that’s a blind spot for them. Having a good understanding of that and the experience of being in it gives you a very different perspective and much more confidence to talk about these things.

“I’m also learning a lot myself. There were plenty of topics I didn’t know: a lot of the stuff I had forgotten since my own school days, and some I may never have learned. Learning these things myself before teaching them made the teaching much easier because I had full empathy with the starting point of the students. I knew what they needed to know in order to build that particular knowledge.”

Five years into teaching, Sven finds his career change has been very rewarding.

“Most of the children are really appreciative,” he says. “They say ‘thank you’ when they exit the classroom, and I get nice cards when they get to their GCSEs or A-Levels. I feel like I am making a difference, and that is why I made the career change.”