Clive Bellows, country head of Northern Trust in Ireland, attends a celebration of the expansion and refurbishment of Northern Trust’s office in Limerick with a ribbon cutting ceremony with the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. Following the ceremony, Northern Trust’s Irish management hold a closed meeting with Noonan where they discuss their recommendations on a number of regulatory issues affecting Ireland – such as the approach of the Central Bank to the regulation of funds and fund service providers and the gold plating of European anti-money laundering legislation.

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.