I remember being a fan of the Finanical Times as far back as when I was 8 years old. I wasn't reading it back then mind, the salmon paper just made really good papier mache. All the kids in art club were encouraged to nick their Father's newspapers and bring them in to create all sorts of wonderfully pink tinged pieces. My Father only read Private Eye, so I think we literally just bought the FT to pulp it. But I grew up and became strangely interested in business and the state of the markets. I remember reading the FT on the train when I was 15 and commuting into the City to do work experience at Wachovia. I don't think I knew what any of the numbers meant, but I remember desperately wanting to understand it all.

For some reason I had decided early on that I wanted to work on a foreign exchange desk at a big bank. I'd spend my summer holidays on the beach reading any old text book that I could get my hands on to help me understand more about the markets. Most were practically useless as they were so out of date, but they confirmed an interest in the subject matter at least. When I studied economics at sixth form I realised my interest was leaning away from working in the City and towards being a financial writer. I wanted to write about business but I wanted to do so in the chatty and informal tone of voice that I was already developing. When I was 16 my main goal (other than owning a pair of Louboutins, obviously) was to write for the FT.  

Anyone reading this who is around my age or have children studying for exams will no doubt remember the CGP revision guides. Firstly, how bloody amazing were they? And secondly, that was the exact kind of thing I wanted to be doing...writing about arguably complicated topics in a fun and simple way. Though I would never claim to be able to write a one liner as good as the ones you find in a CGP book. My personal statement on my UCAS form was all about how I wanted to write about business and make it accessible and interesting to a Joe Public audience. I think I went on about this a bit too much in my Cambridge interview as the panel didn't seem to understand why I wasn't applying to study English. I never wanted to study English, I didn't even take it past GCSE level where it was compulsory, I wanted to study Economics.

So I was very lucky to end up at SSEES, the School of Slavanoic and East European Studies, a bizarre but wonderful department at UCL. I studied Economics, Business and Eastern European Studies. As anyone who studied this with me will confirm, it was seriously hard work. Some of the modules were easy enough, but others required so many hours upon hours of reading that you'd often find yourself falling asleep in the library with no clue whatsoever as to what you were supposed to be even vaguely trying to understand. Suggested reading might not even be in English, which just added to the fun and games of it all. I've never wanted to be Polish so much in my life as in my final year of university.

But I muddled through and did well in the end. I loved writing my final year dissertation, I chose to examine the nature of entrepreneurship under transition conditions, exploring regional and gender differences. It was probably one of the most interesting (to me at least) things I've ever worked on to date. You can read it here, it's written very simply as that was what I was trying to achieve - condensing scores of complicated and foreign texts into something that was easily accessible. I was working full time in the summer holidays throughout university and I just went straight back to my day job as soon as I did my last exam, I think it was Russian Political Economy, without even so much as a day off to get smashed. Though I've partied hard enough since university to not resent the fact there wasn't much debauchery whilst I was there. Maybe I've got it all the wrong way round? Probably.

I suppose I did end up being a bit of a business writer to some extent, I wrote about the property market a lot as part of my job at both Zoomf and Globrix, but I had never been able to tick off 'write an article for the FT' from my life goal to do list. Until today :)

I was flattered beyond words when Peter Whitehead asked me to write an article for him, gobsmacked in fact. Peter followed me on Twitter so knew me at my sweary, X Factor obsessed best. I was pleasantly surprised (read: shocked) that he'd want me to expand my thoughts beyond 140 characters. But he did, so I did. You can read the article on the front page of Executive Appointments in today's print edition or you can read it online here. You need to be registered with the FT to read their articles online, but it's free and quick to do so.

I'm ridiculously pleased to be able to check this off my life goal list, I don't think I expected this one would ever happen. It's given me high hopes for sleeping with Dustin Hoffman now too.

My 95 year old great grandmother has read it and apparently approves of it, so I suppose that's the main thing :) 

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