A career in financial services equips people for many challenges but working voluntarily in the developing world is not an immediately obvious one. Yet many bankers do exactly that.

Until three years ago, Jean Pierre Sevos worked on Wall Street as a managing director in Asian equity markets for Salomon Smith Barney. Since retiring, he has divided his time between New York, the south of France and Ukraine.

Sevos admits his rented apartment in Ukraine is the least luxurious of his abodes. He said: “It’s not a five-star hotel. Ukraine is a poor country.” However, like other emerging market economies, Ukraine offers bankers the opportunity to put their skills to good use in the voluntary sector.

During two three-month assignments in Ukraine, Sevos has helped establish a venture capital firm and advised a local pharmaceutical company how to prepare westernised accounts.

He said: “There is a real need for investment banking knowledge in countries that are too underdeveloped to attract the interest of large firms.”

Sevos said bankers constitute a natural talent pool, particularly as many leave the industry young and are financially independent.

Ian Sternlieb, a former partner and managing director at Lehman Brothers in New York, has put his financial independence to use in voluntary endeavours.

Now 75, he left Lehman in 1990 and, like Sevos, found work through the International Executive Service Corps (((IESC))), a US organisation that places volunteers in small and medium-sized firms in the developing world and emerging democracies.

Sternlieb worked with the ((IESC)) to train three young men to set up an investment bank in Budapest.

He said three years later, when the bank was sold to ABN Amro, his Hungarian trainees became multi-millionaires. They have since become close friends. Sternlieb said the experience was highly rewarding, personally and professionally: “The investment banker can assist and discuss with government and industry executives how to raise capital, develop capital markets, do mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, and assist in creating business plans to help the country and industries grow.”

Fund management staff can lend a hand, too. Mike Nichols, a Chicago fund manager, has helped teach Ukrainian bankers techniques of company analysis as well as educating Zimbabwean fund managers in the intricacies of index funds.

Nichols said the best volunteers are those with knowledge of particular financial products: “You can spend a month in a developing country and teach people a useful amount about fund types or equity derivatives.”

Volunteers claim their role can be stressful and far from straightforward. Nichols said some Ukrainian oligarchs took the view that he was there simply to help them all get rich. In Bulgaria, Sternlieb came across a respected businessman who kept three sets of books: one for himself, one for the government, and one for the local mafia.

Alongside beekeepers, engineers and computer technicians, the ((IESC)) has more than 100 investment bankers of various nationalities on its books.

Peter Korzenick, director of the skills database at the ((IESC)), said investment banking knowledge might eventually be put to good use in rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq. However, neither country are sufficiently developed to require specialists in raising capital.

The ((IESC)) carries out most of its work with small and medium-sized enterprises in central Asia.

Most of the ((IESC))’s financial services volunteers are retired. Sternlieb said this is no coincidence as investment bankers could jeopardise their careers by undertaking long stints of voluntary work: “If you go away, you will put client relationships in jeopardy.”

Nichols said many bankers might find it hard to cope with the spartan living accommodation and practical business problems faced by volunteers. “It can be very basic work. People with New York investment banking experience are coming from a long way away from the developing world.
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VSO, a UK-based development charity, makes use mainly of management consultants and corporate employees. However, a spokeswoman said a few of its volunteers were former investment bank staff, often with expertise in related areas such as accounting.

Mark Braithwaite, a former corporate financier at Merrill Lynch, caught the eye of VSO because of his accounting background. After three years at the US bank, Braithwaite spent six months working for VSO in Zambia, where he helped two companies improve their reporting systems.

Instead of going back into banking, Braithwaite is looking for a job as a finance director of a small company. He said working in Zambia has given him a broader perspective on what he wants to do: “Volunteering and using your skills practically can have a positive impact on your view of life.

I would encourage everyone to think about it. You can benefit hugely on a personal level; it can also help your career by making you stand out from the crowd.”

VSO said it would be unable to find work for lots of investment banking volunteers. Braithwaite said volunteer work would not appeal to most of them anyway. “Colleagues at Merrill said: ‘It sounds amazing, I wish I could do that.’ My response was: ‘You can if you want to.’

“But most people are too focused on keeping their jobs to take even a sabbatical, and not many people will give up $200,000 a year for $200 a month.”