Karen Sloan is head of payments and cash management at HSBC Corporate Banking, Ireland. Sloan spends most of her day discussing treasury and cash management topics with both local and international colleagues, while maintaining close relationships with Irish and international clients. She says client activity is at a high at the moment as a result of the Single European Payment Area (SEPA), which she says is a unique opportunity for clients 'to re-engineer their bank account and liquidity management structures to streamline processes.'

A career in financial services consulting can provide so many very different career paths and learning opportunities, that it's a good idea not to start out in this career with too fixed an idea of what you will be doing, recommends Gillian Comerford, who works with Accenture. Consultants need to be able to listen, be flexible, and be open to exploring every opportunity that comes along, she says, as sometimes the greatest and most unexpected of outcomes can stem from what initially appear to be very mundane opportunities.