This journey ends with a brief goodbye...but not for long

There are times and dates in your life when you look back and think – yes, that was when my life did a pivot. When you feel your world turn and find yourself facing a new and sometimes scary direction.

I’m not talking about dates you plan and know in advance – like when you graduate from university or get married – but dates that take you by surprise. Sitting at your desk on a hot August day in New York 1997 when, after a colleague quits unexpectedly in the London office, a man named Peter Harris walks up to you and asks - ‘How fast can you pack?’ Or lying half naked and bleeding on a hospital bed on a drizzly November morning in 2004 waiting for a baby to start crying. And then when he does, your world tilts on its axis. 

2015 is starting to feel like that type of year.

I always wanted to become a journalist. From about nine years old onwards when anyone would ask ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I would answer ‘journalist’. On graduating from university in 1994, I went about and answered every ad I saw in the New York Times that said ‘reporter’. A publisher of newsletters on real-time market data and trading room infrastructure? Sure, why not? All I saw was ‘reporter’ and New York. Finance, banking and tech? I’d learn.

And boy did I learn. Sometimes (well, most of the time) the hard way.

I have written before about how I have spent the past 20 years meandering, sometimes with purpose and sometimes by accident, through the creaks and hilltops of global financial technology. I’ve had different jobs, with varying degrees of success (one nine-month stint as a recruiter was a low point), but there was one media company where I knew I wanted to work, and that was Finextra.

Everyone reads Finextra. From around 2000 onwards, I started almost every morning of my working life, no matter where I worked, logging on to Finextra to see what news they had up that day. One day I saw an ad in Gorkana looking for a ‘multimedia editor’. I opened up excited, then my heart sank. ‘Needs to have working knowledge of camera and video editing software’. I barely knew how to use the camera on my phone. It might have well said ‘Must be fluent in Mandarin.’

However, a few weeks later, I got an email from the editor asking me to apply. ‘Don’t you have to know how to use a camera?’ I replied. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll teach you.’ OK. So I went in and interviewed for a job at Finextra. A few weeks later I found myself sitting at a desk recently vacated by an editor who had emigrated back to Australia, staring at an Avid Liquid video editing suite (that refused to work on my PC) and hauling around a giant camera and tripod, in front of which, I had been assured, I would never have to appear.

Oh, how my time changed at Finextra.

I started to use Twitter more regularly and people would respond. They started to engage, to ask me questions, and add to my comments. I discovered there were growing communities of people who wanted to talk about payments and FinTech and regulations, and Twitter is this fast, global and free service that lets all these people do that. Any journalist not using Twitter regularly needs to re-evaluate why they became journalists in the first place. Journalists hear people’s stories and write them down (or record them on video). To do that you need to like talking with people.

We set up webcasts. Chris Pickles, formerly of BT, suggested: ‘You know Liz, you should moderate this webcast.’ Me? Fat dumpy me, with my poor pronunciation and badly coloured hair, on camera? My first webcast where I appeared, was on low latency and high frequency trading, filmed at the London Stock Exchange. I had nightmares the entire night before. Almost 50 webcasts later, including the first live webcast from Sibos, I don’t get nightmares anymore.

We began using a professional cameraman. I moved in front of the camera. Now, after over 1,000 videos, I know how to colour my hair, how to ask a question without saying ‘umm’ and ‘ya know’ (most of the time), and I can do a piece to camera in one take – on any subject (as long as it is FinTech related ;-)

We started doing breakfast roundtables, dinners and big events to accompany the videos and webcasts. If you are anyone who’s anyone in this industry, I am sure you have received an email from me which starts with a line similar to ‘I have a speaking opportunity for you’.

Finding speakers for all our Finextra events has been both the most frustrating and most satisfying part of my job. I’ve learned several things. 1. You must be very well-organised. 2. You go to the conference with the speakers you have 3. My immense gratitude will be with any person who took time out of their day to speak on a webcast or a breakfast or any other Finextra ‘special project’. It really will. (And if you have ever bailed at the last minute and left me and Finextra hanging – I have a very long memory).

I started to blog because I have ‘opinions’ and am a know-it-all. People responded. Organisations like Nacha, the people behind Social Media Week, the European Central Bank, called me up to speak or moderate panels at their events – based on a blog I wrote, on Finextra. I’ve even spoken at iSXSW in Austin, Texas.

Finextra gave me the platform to find my voice. I’ve walked on stage, in front of podiums, in front of cameras in cities all over the world to talk about, and ask questions on, financial services and technology. I don’t doubt my ability to do this anymore. I found that confidence at Finextra.

Because of all of the above, I began to be recognised. It is very odd, being an ordinary person, to find yourself mainlining coffee at City Airport at 6:00 am only to be tapped on the shoulder by a stranger saying, ‘Oh my God!, Are you Liz Lumley of Finextra?’

I’ve had a few of those over the years. Ranging from: ‘I follow you on Twitter, religiously’ (No need to go that far) to: ‘Can I have a selfie?’ (Who do you think I am, Brett King?)

For years, I saw a long road spread out in front of me at Finextra. We are a very small team here. There are people here at the London office who work, sometimes 12 hour days, forgoing holidays, to bring the FinTech community a global service. They don’t get recognised at City Airport – but they are the reason I do. I feel very privileged to work with them.

However, recently, on that long road there appeared a marker. One marked: ‘Stay as you are, this road will not change’ and another that read: ‘Turn your head and look down here.’ 

I turned my head. I took a pivot. This new road is filled with experiences I don’t have and it’s scary. I find myself, once again, at a place where my only recourse is ‘I’ll learn’. And I will.

For the past 20 years I have made financial technology my specialist subject and for the past six years Finextra was my home. It’s time to take my specialist subject and leave home.

As of next week, if I meet a stranger at an event who greets me with ‘OMG, you’re Liz Lumley…of Finetxra!’ I will smile and say, ‘Yes…yes, I was.’

See you on the other side.