(Bloomberg) -- The rooftop garden of Wells Fargo & Co.'s London office affords sweeping views of the capital's financial districts. For Charlotte Weir, the bank's U.K. outpost is a reminder of her new employer's ambitions in international banking.
Weir is the lender's new head of corporate banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, one of a trio of hires in London last year designed to help bolster Wells Fargo's presence outside its home market in areas like debt capital markets and commercial real estate. Recent transactions include helping information services firm Experian Plc and semiconductor giant Infineon Technologies AG raise half a billion euros ($550 million) each.
Weir spoke with Bloomberg about her lender's European build out, how Wells Fargo is reacting to Ukraine and her experience of building a finance career in the traditionally male-dominated industry.
Her comments have been edited and condensed.
How is Wells Fargo expanding in Europe?
First and foremost we are looking to do more to support our existing clients and therefore we are focusing on selectively expanding our capabilities. That's building into more of the financing advisory products and delivering more idea generation and content, maintaining our focus on risk management, whether that's interest rates swaps, cross currency swaps, FX, and just trying to do more with the clients that we already have very strong relationships with.
We are also looking to very selectively add new clients.
What areas in particular are growing?
We are seeing much more inquiry around acquisition financing. And we absolutely want to be at the forefront of that effort, helping companies that want to grow through acquisitions and providing the financing support to help them do that.
Quite often, our corporate clients here in EMEA will use us for dollar issuance, and actually we're really keen to ensure that we are being used not just for dollars but actually we've got great capability in euros and in sterling.
ESG continues to be a huge growth area and we are dedicating resources there to support both in the loan product and the bond product with an ESG lens.
How are markets responding to Ukraine?
From a business perspective, we have minimal exposure to Russia or Ukraine with no offices or staff there.
The markets have reacted in the usual way with a flight to quality that comes from any sort of market disruption, as market participants shift into government bonds while they work out what is going on. The new issue bond market has also faced disruption so as an organization, we have been working through that with our clients who are active in the bond markets and may have had a period of market shutdown.
Companies couldn't necessarily get transactions done, so we helped issuers navigate the open windows to get trades done, or working with those who decided they didn't want to expose themselves to the volatility and decided to not access the market.
How does Wells Fargo assist?
We focus first and foremost on trying to understand how our clients are affected and seeing where we could help by giving them the best advice around what the markets are doing and how this could affect them.
Its ascertaining how they are impacted, do they have operations there, staff on the ground, factories, or do the affected regions form part of their supply chain or have they got any exposure there through contracts, do they need assistance with getting staff out safely?
Were they planning on accessing the bond markets, do they use the commercial paper market and have been affected by reduced liquidity there, do they need to draw down on liquidity facilities to cover any cash flow disruption?
What do you enjoy most about banking?
I realized very quickly this is something I really enjoyed.
Part of it is the buzz of transactions and working in a fast paced environment. Part of it is actually the people connection and developing relationships with your clients which I've always enjoyed.
How has your experience changed over the years?
When I first started, there were not many women in banking at all and you felt like you were trying to climb the ladder on your own a lot of the time. In the organizations I worked at when I was starting out in banking, you didn't necessarily have women in senior leadership positions that you could aspire to be or to seek feedback from.
The finance sector has changed over the years but there is still a ways to go, I'm the first to admit that, but there are many more areas of support now. Ensuring we get an equal proportion of men and women coming into any graduate or intern schemes, there are much better mentoring programs for women at all levels and women's networks within organizations are hugely supportive for individuals and help with getting more allies on board and changing mindsets.
There is more to be done though and we need to keep pushing for this.
What do you do to relax?
I run. That's my relaxation. It's something I've done for a couple of years. I'm not a marathon runner or anything crazy like that. 5k is my sweet spot.
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