Our people
Andrea John and Shampavi Tharmanathan both work in Finance at Macquarie. Both have also encountered multiple opportunities to evolve their careers across teams, divisions and regions. In 2019, Andrea returned to the organisation full-time after spending six months with Macquarie in 2015 while studying. She is currently a manager in Group Finance in Sydney. Meanwhile, Shampavi joined Macquarie’s Graduate Program in Sydney and is now a manager in Group Treasury in the London office.
Andrea John first joined Macquarie in 2015 on an internship as part of her Bachelor of Accounting Co-op Program. She enjoyed six months in product control for trading finance, part of the Commodities and Global Markets group, before taking up an audit role for a large consulting firm on graduation.
Three years later, she was drawn back to financial services, when she was offered a Treasury Finance role at Macquarie.
“It was a lateral move as my audit skills were transferable,” Andrea says. “Macquarie felt like the right place because I was looking for a dynamic step-up culture, and a challenge.”
“I liked the idea of genuinely owning my own career.”
After returning to Macquarie as an Executive in 2019, Andrea worked in Treasury Finance for Group Treasury. In 2020, she was promoted to Manager and subsequently worked on financial transactions, where she was tasked with providing technical and operational accounting support, supporting the delivery of a number of Group Treasury transactions. In 2021, her role evolved once again as she moved into Group Finance’s Advisory and Governance team.
“Now I look at Group-wide transactions,” Andrea explains. “We try to understand the technical accounting complexities of each transaction and ensure the finance risks are understood and appropriately mitigated, acting as a Group Finance centre of excellence.”
My role has broadened and has grown more complex over time and that’s been very rewarding. My needs and aspirations have always been taken into account and I have seen more of the transactional work, which I was most interested in."
“My career journey with Macquarie goes to show that even within the same team, there can be constant opportunity for growth and variety.”
Andrea says Advisory and Governance is one of five teams that fall under Group Finance. Within it, she is part of the Transactions and Policy team.
“Transactions and Policy is a growing team, and we deal with things that aren’t standard or don’t fit elsewhere,” Andrea explains. “We are thrown problems within finance, we solve them, and make the solution part of the business process.”
As a result, she says that every day she gets to do something different.
Projects are often triggered by opportunities to optimise the group’s corporate structure and Andrea’s team supports this from a finance perspective.
“I enjoy interacting with lots of different stakeholders internally, from Retail Banking and Commodities and Global Markets to Group Treasury teams - learning about what they do and having a broad perspective on how the Group operates,” Andrea says.
“A lot of the projects are high profile, and we deal with senior stakeholders. They often have a global scope, so we coordinate with colleagues in the US, Europe and Asia.”
“We’re solving complex, non-standard problems as a team in a fast paced, evolving environment,” Andrea says.
“Curiosity, resilience, and communication skills are key.”
A month after joining Macquarie full-time, Andrea mentioned she wanted to complete her chartered financial analyst (CFA), and her team supported her.
“I’ve received formal and informal training, ranging from Macquarie’s support for my CFA to soft skills and technical training, and everyone is generous with their time in answering questions.”
Andrea says she has put her hand up for as much as possible.
“I’ve been given space to grow,” she says. “Sometimes I've pushed for things that I didn’t even think were achievable. But that puts your goals on the radar, and Macquarie will help you get there.”
Shampavi Tharmanathan joined Macquarie’s Sydney Office in Group Treasury on the Graduate Program in 2016, after completing a Bachelor of Economics and Arts.
“I was attracted to Macquarie’s innovative reputation, and treasury intrigued me because it offered great variety,” she explains.
“I started as an Associate in the Funding Execution team, issuing long term debt into the market, which was an amazing learning experience and great for building networks and I had exposure to senior management on a daily basis.”
By 2017 Shampavi was promoted to Senior Associate, and in 2018 she was made Executive.
During this time she had the chance to work on establishing Macquarie’s first green loan facility, something she counts as a career milestone.
With family in London, Shampavi was keen to experience living and working in the UK.
I asked my manager if I could move to London and amazingly, Macquarie made it happen."
The team she’d been working for in Sydney didn’t exist in London, so she sidestepped into a role in Funding and Liquidity Risk.
“Rather than funding execution, I’m now looking at funding and liquidity risk management,” Shampavi says.
Her move in 2019 coincided with the formalisation of Brexit and new entities, such as Macquarie Bank Europe being established.
“Being there to experience how a bank is set up was fascinating,” she explains.
Shampavi was appointed Manager in 2020 and says the move to London allowed her to experience a new team, business activity and region. It also gave her the opportunity to understand Macquarie more holistically.
“Group Treasury oversees a great breadth of work which not only makes it interesting, it gives you a central perspective looking over Macquarie’s operations.”
“I currently focus on managing the funding and liquidity risk arising in Macquarie Bank Europe,” Shampavi says. “This entity offers energy, oil and gas solutions to clients through our Commodities and Global Markets division and the recent energy crisis has presented some interesting work in managing liquidity risks in this dynamic environment.”
“I’ve experienced trust, but also excellent career support and learning from my managers in both Sydney and London,” she explains. “In a business this diverse, there’s always something you don’t know, but senior management are very approachable.”
Shampavi says her own experience shows mobility is not only encouraged globally, but also internally, across Macquarie’s businesses, resulting in what she says is a two-way benefit.
“There are always fresh challenges and new things to explore and learn at Macquarie,” Shampavi says. “Being able to move to London has been a highlight.”
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