About Us
Ashdown Financial Training
Banking Experience
Richard spent over 20 years in front office investment banking roles in corporate finance, DCM & ECM and equity derivatives trading. He was a Managing Director/Head of Department at HSBC, Société Générale and ING and worked in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, spending 15 years living and working in Asia
Training Experience
Richard retired from banking in 2004 and has since worked in financial training and consultancy, delivering well over 1,500 days of highly effective technical and interpersonal skills training
Academic Qualifications
Richard graduated (many years ago!) from Cambridge University (Fitzwilliam College) with an MA in Modern History
AFT is the personal service company for Richard Clayton - Richard works both as a contractor to other training firms and as an independent provider. He offers a wealth of investment banking and training experience and delivers courses covering a broad range of front office topics.
He started his banking career in corporate finance at County Bank in London in the early-1980s before moving to Tokyo for County to help build its securities and investment banking business in Japan. He spent nine years in Japan working in corporate finance, debt capital markets, structured products and, finally, equity derivatives trading. He was a member of the Japan management committee and head of a twenty-person team running books in convertibles, warrants , futures, options and the firm's sizeable index arb and basket trading business.
In the mid-90s he moved to Hong Kong and joined HSBC to build its north-east Asia equity capital markets business, working on origination of equity and convertibles transactions in Taiwan and Korea. After the 1997 Asian crisis he was promoted to MD to head the Regional Corporate Finance & Advisory business, running a business with over 50 professionals working from Taiwan to India.
Headhunted by SocGen, he moved to London in 2000 to be Co-Head of SG Securities London ECM business with a specific focus on building the bank's convertibles practice outside France. In 2002 SG won the prestigious IFR Convertibles Bank of the Year award on the back of the growth in non-French business.
He retired from front line banking and, in late 2005, started working in the training industry with ENB Consulting where he specialised in integrated programmes covering both technical and interpersonal skills, working for clients in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US, delivering highly interactive training with a very high rate of repeat business. In 2009 ENB was acquired by Moody's and, along with many of his fellow ENB trainers, Richard left Moody's a year later and joined BG Consulting where he spent the following seven years. At BG, Richard delivered both technical and interpersonal skills programmes to clients across the world, delivering training for a broad range of financial institutions. In April 2017 he left BG and founded Ashdown Financial Training where he works with a range of training firms and direct clients
Nankawa Clayton Limited
Incorporated in England & Wales
Registration #10712565
Registered Office
Yew Tree House
Lewes Road
Forest Row
East Sussex
RH18 5AA
Ashdown Financial Training
+44 (0)1342 822 442/+44 (0)7740 305 703
Actis
Arab Bank
Bank of China
Barclays
BNP Paribas
Credit Agricole
Credit Suisse
Danske Bank
Deutsche Bank
DVB Bank
Egyptian Banking Institute
European Investment Bank
Fokus Bank
Fortis
GE Capital
goetzpartners
Goldman Sachs
Gulf Bank
Hargreaves Lansdown
HSBC
Islamic Development Bank
Kuwait Institue of Banking Stuides
National Irish Bank
Nomura
Qatar Development Bank
Rabobank
RBS
Saudi Airlines
Saudi Hollandi Bank
Saudi Investment Bank
SoundCloud
Société Générale
Standard Bank
Standard Chartered
Banks and other firms where Richard has delivered training in recent years
Contact me at:
Ashdown Forest © 2016
Training with impact
Technical and interpersonal skills training for financial services professionals and students