“It was quite a different world from Panmure. I sometimes used to pinch myself. I’d get off the train and walk up to the office and I think, ‘I can’t believe I’ve ended up here’. It was just a real privilege.”
But the financial sector was hit hard by the GFC, which put Drake’s skills and experience to the test.
“It was very stressful. I had a very difficult time in certain ways, [but] because I’m a little bit of a geek in aspects of the financial crisis around credit risk that were ones that I’d specialised in, there were things which went well and I was able to help the company.
“But it was a very stressful time, compounded by the fact my wife and I were involved in a church in a very poor area of London, so we were very conscious of the divorce between the world of finance and some of the things happening there, and the effects on real people’s lives.
“That was something which kept us very connected to what was happening.”
While Drake was in the UK, he pursued academic study, culminating in doctorates in computer science from York University and theology from Oxford University.
In an attempt to make the most of his theological study, he took up the role of Archdeacon of Tāmaki Makaurau in 2018, one of the most senior roles within the Māori Anglican Church.
While banking colleagues were confused as to why he would swap his high-earning, high-powered role at Barclays Capital to live and work in a poor community in Aotearoa, Drake says they were mainly “very supportive”.
“There’s this image of investment banking as a very cut-throat world, and it is to some degree. But it’s also been, for me, one of the best experiences of teamwork and of working closely with other people that I’ve ever had.
“I’ve been really lucky to spend time with people who cared about me as a person… I found that there were many people who were interested in me and why I might want to go and make this significant change, from banking into theology.”
Lyndon Drake wants to contribute to ethical changes in banking
As he prepares to move back to the UK, Drake says he’d love to be able to contribute to ethical changes within the banking world.
“I think most of us in society have an intuition that something like a bank ought not to exist simply to make impossible sums of money,” he told Cowan.
“There’s a danger in thinking that any one person can go and change the world, and we’re moving back to the UK for family reasons. But within that, I’m trying to explore what my vocation would be.
“I hope that what I’m involved in will continue, but just in a different form. At this stage, I don’t know whether that will be within the academic world directly or getting back involved in the financial world.
“But it would be a dream of mine to be able to change things a little bit so that some of these outcomes are different – not just the intentions.”
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.
