2022 Shortlist: Mentor of the Year Award

We are delighted to share more details of each of the shortlisted nominees, with a reminder of the category overview.

JULIAN HARTLEY, TESCO BANK (NOW SECURE TRUST BANK)

Already recognised for his proactive support for mentoring by being named WIBF Mentor of the Month in May 2022, Julian is a high-profile mentor for the financial services industry who garners exemplary feedback from WIBF mentees, as well as from internal Tesco Bank mentees.

In his day job, Julian Hartley is Commercial Director for Tesco Bank. Since joining the mentoring programme during the pandemic in 2020/21, Julian has now mentored three individuals via the WIBF mentoring programme. He demonstrates a clear dedication to mentor, while his action-oriented mentoring, rather than ‘just’ being discussion led, is one we want more mentors to adopt.

MARIA DRAMALIOTI-TAYLOR, BEACON CAPITAL

Maria is the founding managing partner of Beacon, a London-based fund that invests in enterprise technology across Europe.

An engineer with an MBA, Maria has initiated, led and still supports a huge range of technology initiatives to position her as an industry role model. Maria is also an angel investor, on the board of a number of fast-growing companies (including that of Included.VC), is a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Committee and a Chair in its Emerging Technologies Committee and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD. Maria’s submission was a very personal one written by a mentee who also flagged Maria’s fencing capabilities, warning people to watch out for her ripostes!

MARGOT WADDUP, WELLS FARGO

Margot is a Managing Director at Wells Fargo, responsible for real estate syndicated finance and the underwriting of loans to be subsequently distributed in the loan markets. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Margot held a similar position at Eurohypo. Her banking career has spanned over 30 years and includes time at Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and NatWest.

Not only recognised as a strong mentor internally at Wells Fargo – who uses her role to support various initiatives and networks – and as a WIBF mentor with an ongoing relationship, Margot is seen as an excellent role model. Hugely engaged across various networks in her company and externally, demonstrating a clear passion for making things better and more equal in the workplace, the mentoring examples provided on Margot’s behalf overwhelmingly demonstrate the impact she has across numerous relationships.

Margot is passionate about creating a workplace that has diversity, equity and inclusion intrinsically integrated with its culture and operations.

MARTIN FIDDAMAN, MARTIN FIDDAMAN ASSOCIATES

Martin is a highly experienced executive with over 30 years of experience in commercial, investment and transaction banking, having worked with local, regional, and international financial institutions of all sectors and sizes, as well as with professional clients and the UK government. This experience is also across a breadth of products from lending to financial markets and transaction banking, with his broad skill set used to offer advice on leadership, relationship management and client coverage, amongst other disciplines.

Martin’s reputation is founded on his strong long-term relationships, sound market knowledge, great experience, consistent execution and a good sense of humour. In his nomination, evidence was provided to show Martin as an engaged and supportive mentor for the WIBF programme since early 2021 and elsewhere. Having completed three successful mentoring relationships through WIBF alone, Martin holds himself accountable and provides structured support, both of which clearly help his mentees.

MIKE EATON, KPMG

Mike is the lead partner in KPMG’s Managed Services business, which he has grown over the past decade to now see over 1,200 colleagues working across delivery centres in Leeds, Glasgow, Delhi and Bangalore. His work across the banking, insurance, technology and outsourcing sectors for over 30 years has resulted in a wealth of experience that he brings to his mentoring, which also benefits from an impressive history of mentoring and coaching colleagues across his team and his organisation, and across all the organisations he has worked in throughout his career.

He was also one of the first mentors to participate in KPMG’s Breathe LGBTQ+ mentoring programme, encouraging others to participate as mentors and becoming a role model for other LGBTQ+ colleagues in KPMG by showcasing his own career progression. His focus on colleagues from diverse backgrounds and support for new joiners in the firm’s Next Generation Voice programme, as well as for others, has resulted in several of his mentees being counselled throughout their careers in the firm, with specific support for many through several promotion stages.

SALIM THARANI, KPMG

Salim is Head of Financial Services Audit at KPMG, responsible for around 2,200 Partners and colleagues. Throughout his time at the firm, he has acted as a mentor for individuals at all levels of the organisation, promoting diversity through, for example, a cross industry ‘Mission INCLUDE’ programme, acting as a Black Ally and supporting talented individuals as they progress through the firm.

Realising that senior talent also need support, Salim currently acts as mentor to a female partner who was an external hire to help her establish herself in the firm. He also runs two mentoring circles, which combines support around 15 individuals to help them raise their profile in the firm and manage their careers. Over the past two years, in particular, Salim’s mentees have gone on to secure promotions to director, access overseas assignments in the firm and achieve recognition through external awards.

Salim is a huge advocate for inclusion and diversity and has sponsored and led development programmes for talented females from across KPMG to help them build confidence and leadership skills.

TATIANA LAZAREVA, WELLS FARGO

Tatiana is Senior Business Manager for Wells Fargo’s EMEA Global Payments and has a banking career of 30 years with various leading financial institutions. Throughout her career, Tatiana has had a variety of roles and responsibilities ranging from client coverage and complex structuring to risk underwriting, business management and governance. Being a mother of three daughters and a passionate basketball player, Tatiana is a role model and an advocate for diversity and inclusion, who promotes career development and work-life balance.

When she was young, Tatiana play for Turkmenistan national basketball team and is currently a member of the Masters’ team representing Great Britain in the European Championship. Basketball has taught Tatiana to bring the best out of other players for the benefit of the whole team. With this mentality, Tatiana strives to develop and mentor talent across Wells Fargo and outside of work, providing guidance and supporting the diversity and inclusion agenda. Here, she has been an Advisor to Wells Fargo’s EMEA women’s network, ‘Women’s Connection’, for the last three years, with external initiatives including collaboration with WIBF and its mentoring programme.

YULIYA KRYZHANOVSKA, CREDIT SUISSE

Yuliya originally trained and qualified for a career in medicine before deciding to switch to finance. She joined Credit Suisse in January 2017 and established herself as a market-leading emerging market trader. In 2021 she was promoted to Director.

Co-Chair of the EMEA Women Network Career Development Committee, Yuliya is also responsible for the company’s mentoring programme. Together with the other co-chair, she has matched 100 mentor-mentee pairs within Credit Suisse EMEA, and found mentors for all the 45 female mentees on the waiting list at the beginning of the year.

Yuliya also represents fixed income on the bank’s Women Connect Network and is responsible for its EMEA Vice President (VP) to Director promotion buddy initiative, supporting female VPs to prepare for the promotion process in this/next year’s round of promotion, where they are matched with the recent Director promotes (of all genders).

In developing the pathway for women to have trading roles which remain underrepresented in the industry, Yuliya seeks to engage and empower today’s talent by mentoring female mentees on a one-on-one basis and participants of the summer programme of student interns.