A day in the life of Murali

Name
Murali

"Although I’m based in Dubai, I’m responsible for Barclaycard in Kenya, Egypt and Botswana."

Role
Cluster and New Acquisition Head, Barclaycard

Works in
Barclaycard

Location
Dubai, UAE

My Working day

As my direct reports are based in Kenya, Egypt and Botswana, I often travel to work directly with the teams in those countries, and am usually away from the office about ten days a month. When I am based at my desk, I’m often involved in conference calls with colleagues all over the world.

In the morning, 09:00 to 11:00
If I’m not travelling, I spend the morning preparing for meetings I’ve got lined up for the day ahead. I often speak with the Barclaycard heads of business from other Emerging Markets countries in a conference call to review their progress and discuss the challenges they face.

Around lunch, 11:00 to 14:00
The business in Botswana is supported by a technology office in Northampton in the UK so occasionally I will need to speak to people based there. Because we’re three hours ahead of UK time, the earliest I can reach them is mid-morning. Throughout the day I’m usually involved with conference calls with my colleagues in the countries I’m responsible for.

Early afternoon, 14:00 to 17:00
Twice a week I speak with my manager and peers to analyse Barclaycard’s performance in Botswana, Egypt or Kenya. We’ll work together to discuss the opportunities and risks the countries face and make decisions based on the latest information we’ve gathered and received.

End of the day, 17:00 to 18:00
At this time of day I wrap up my work, summarising minutes from the meetings I’ve attended and identifying priorities for the next day. If I’m travelling, I’ll go for dinner with my teams after work – it’s a great opportunity to build stronger relationships with them and get to know them better.

My career at Barclays

I joined the company in my current role in 2007 and since then the Indonesian project I’m involved with has been added to my responsibilities. One of the milestones of my Barclays career to-date was addressing graduate trainees on the Group’s Africa Leadership Programme and sharing with them my experiences of how the Barclaycard business is developing in Emerging Markets.

How I started out

I’m originally from India but left the country to join Barclays in Dubai. My previous role was Head of Credit Cards for Deutsche Bank’s Indian division. Prior to that I worked for Citibank and before that I was at British American Tobacco. I did an MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and graduated from university with a degree in engineering.