REVEALED: THE LOVELIEST CITY LADIES
1. SARAH DAVISON
RBS SEMPRA METALS
It’s finally official – the gorgeous Miss Davison, who has graced the pages of City PM several times since her initial appearance on the front cover last year, is the loveliest lady the business world has to offer.
Sarah has worked as a metals trader for RBS Sempra Metals for around a decade, following a brief spell at the Queen’s bank Coutts, and is determined to carry on in her own field – though The Capitalist hears her mother would love her to take up modelling.
But judging by the response to the publication of her smouldering photograph on the front cover, when dozens of smitten City types emailed in to show their admiration, she’d probably make a darned good job of either.
2. VANESSA SHAW
PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS
Vanessa trained and worked as an accountant with PwC before moving over to the public relations team at the firm. But enough of the everyday: I hear the sultry stunner’s real talent lies in singing and dancing, having been in a pop band for a while prior to joining the rather more sedate world of the City. Could the less than illustrious future of the band in question, Suga, have anything to do with the names of its equally saccharine hits, “Gimme the Love” and “I like it”?
3. KATIE RATNER
SEYMOUR PIERCE
Katie, or “Ratty”, as she’s known to her friends, is a broker at Seymour Pierce, following in the footsteps of her late father Richard Ratner, the firm’s well-loved former vice chairman. She is a keen skier and horserider – and even has a thing for elephant polo, having once represented England at a game in Nepal with a City team labelled “Trunk and Disorderly”. Not exactly your average claim to fame, is it?
4. ISABEL CROSSLEY
ST BRIDES MEDIA AND FINANCE
Yummy mummy Isabel – quite probably the most popular lady in the City – originally set up PR outfit St Brides with Hugo de Salis, with whom she later became, shall we say, romantically entangled? In a fairytale ending, the pair are now married and have a beautiful little daughter, Amelie Daisy. All together now…
5. CHARLOTTE STRANNER
DANIEL STEWART
Charlotte is another of many bubbly blondes among our finalists (that’ll show the doomsayers peddling the idea that City ladies are darkening their hair to impress recruiters at interview). Down to earth but hard-working, a best buddy tells me she can’t half hold her own at City networking jaunts. Sounds like The Capitalist’s kinda gal.
6. VICTORIA PALMER-MOORE
POWERSCOURT
Perhaps the “posh totty” of the competition, aristocratic beauty Victoria trained as a modern linguist at Oxford and worked for investment banks UBS, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch before crossing over to the world of public relations and joining Powerscourt as a consultant.
7. BRITT LINTNER
GLG PARTNERS
No question about it, Britt could have invented multi-tasking. A fashion designer who dresses the likes of the PM’s wife Sarah Brown, she also manages to hold down a full time job at hedge fund GLG Partners – and all this while looking immaculate all the time. Wonders will never cease.
8. ELIZABETH HAMMOND
HAMMOND PARTNERS
Does anyone else reckon Elizabeth, the chief executive of City headhunters Hammond Partners, bears a rather uncanny resemblance to Grease star Olivia Newton John? With her blonde locks and killer figure, our leggy lovely must have broken many a businessman’s heart in her time.
9. JUDITH MACKENZIE,
ACUITY CAPITAL
Don’t let that butter-wouldn’t-melt in her mouth smile fool you: fund manager Judith is a tough cookie indeed. She joined Acuity in 2007 from Aberdeen Asset Management and is often to be found on the world’s most difficult ski slopes – when she’s not too busy making money, that is…
10. SAM SMITH
FINNCAP
As managing director of Finncap, the corporate finance division of J.M. Finn, Sam is one of the gutsiest women in the City – though in another life, she might have been a chef instead. Something tells me she’d have given Gordon Ramsay a run for his money, too.