As an alternative investment specialist, Ian Dillon, partner at William Fry, is still getting a lot of queries on AIFMD from clients around the world. Dillon, who has recently returned from a 7 year spell in the Cayman Islands, notes that while the format of the firm’s bi-weekly Asset Management and Investment Funds Group lunch hasn’t changed much from when he last worked in William Fry around 10 years ago, the get-together now requires a considerably bigger room.

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.