Career Shaping Conversations: Ralph Sinclair

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Ralph and I’m the London Bureau Chief at GlobalCapital, an online news and data service covering the global capital markets.

I’m in charge of content: everything from breaking news to news analysis, opinion, data analysis and so on. I commission, edit and even write a bit from time to time. I also host a weekly podcast that provides fresh insights and views for people working in the sector.

In a past life I was on the other side, starting my career as a trader working in the bond market, but I always loved writing and so made a big change almost 15 years ago to start reporting on the industry I’d worked in.

Outside work, you can find me at the London Stadium following the many trials and tribulations of West Ham Utd.

A conversation that clarified my thinking

I remember sitting down for what was to become my final appraisal as a trader. I’d been thinking about doing something different for a while, but I was in a very well paid job, which I was good at, so it was hard to know if leaving was the right thing.

I’d love to say this conversation was an inspirational call to arms that set me free, but in reality it was more of a final nail in the coffin chat. My boss gave a bit of a ‘pep talk’ about what sort of organisation I was working at, what sort of people thrived, and what sort of behaviours were needed to succeed... and I just thought ‘no, enough’.

Without going into detail about what the desired behaviours were, I knew he was describing a culture that was not for me, and a future that I just didn’t want.

The conversation helped me boot myself out of the door, into the big wide world. It clarified what I really wanted, and what I definitely didn’t, and made it easier to leave the financial security behind.

And so I’m eternally grateful for it!

A conversation that lead to an opportunity

While I was trying to figure out how to get started as a writer, I rocked up at a local comedy sketch writing group I’d found online. I wasn’t quite sure what sort of writing I wanted to do so was just trying my hand at lots of things.

I got chatting to another participant who happened to be a financial journalist and was interested in both my background as a trader and in my desire to write. He suggested I submit an opinion piece to his paper, which I duly did.

Nothing much happened for a while, and then suddenly one day they phoned me to let me know they were publishing the piece as it was relevant to the news agenda. It got some attention, and from then on I was up and running.

So it was basically a serendipitous conversation that led to an opportunity that built my confidence and validated my decision to leave banking. I could write, I had a clear area of expertise, and I could build a career around that.

I think it was also a lesson in authentic networking. I went to that sketch group because I was genuinely interested in it and I talked with someone who was genuinely interested in me, and the rest is history.

A conversation that sparked an idea

Before the pandemic GlobalCapital was a printed publication but we went online-only in 2020. We often talked about new ways to reach and engage our audience without that printed artifact, and it was one of those conversations that led to what’s become one of the most rewarding parts of my career over the last few years.

We talked about ‘letting our readers in’, maybe streaming our editorial conference, but that was dismissed as we’d essentially be revealing our own headlines ahead of time.

Instead, it inspired me to devise a podcast where we could showcase the deep analysis and fresh takes on the capital markets that we write each week.

And it’s really taken off. It’s driven subscriptions, attracted advertising and even featured in some top 10 podcast lists, which is pretty good for a niche publication.

So now we can distil the conversations we have with people across our industry, build our own insights and expertise and reach new audiences.

So yeah, conversations can really spark ideas and lead to exciting things.  

Someone I'd like to have a career conversation with...

This may be an obvious choice, but I would love to have had a career conversation with Winston Churchill. Not about the things that he’s most famous for, but about how he approached life and work, and how he switched things up.

I think in his early career he’d been in the Army’s last cavalry charge, he’d been a prisoner of war, he was a war correspondent, he wrote countless books. It wasn’t all politics!

He clearly had a pretty extreme personality and wasn’t afraid to try new things and go for what he wanted. I think trying to understand his perspective and approach would be fascinating even if not exactly something I could replicate.

I’m not sure I’d agree with all his choices but I think you can often define yourself better when you understand how others think differently. I mean I don’t think I’d have fancied being in a cavalry charge, but at least I’d know that about myself, and well, who knows, if the opportunity ever came up...

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