PUBLISHED 09 February 2024
We were delighted to welcome Old Arnoldian, Simon Boynton, to AKS Lytham this week. Simon delivered the February Meet the Professionals Session as part of the schools careers programme.
Simon shard with our students, from Years 10 to Years 13 his fond memories of attending Arnold School from 2001 to 2003 where he studied Law, Geography, French and German at A-Level. He initially joined the IT Industry and through various opportunities with his role, travelled to many cities across Europe to work. Through this he built a network of colleagues and he described to the students that these initial connections still form the foundation to his business network today and explained the importance of building your own network early into ones career.
Simon joined the Banking Sector and in 2013 started at Barclays Bank and for the last 10 years has focused on the Financial Crime Disruption area of the business. Simon shared with students how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the banking sector and how he led a programme to implement Machine Learning as a layer of efficiency and protection over screening both Barclays customers and payments.
Last month, Simon moved from the Banking Sector to the Pharmaceutical Industry and joined Astra Zeneca in a new role to the company as the Head of Data Access and Data Transfer. He described how AstraZeneca is working with AI at scale with a team of 700 working in this area on transformative drugs and researching clinical trial data.
Our students asked many questions about AI and how this may impact employment opportunities in the future.
In terms of his top tips, Simon shared how it is important when starting ones career to build a network of people you can trust who can give you sound advice. He also shared how through his own experience he has found that any opportunities involving travelling to and experiencing different countries and their cultures were incredibly valuable.
Thank you, Simon Boynton, for inspiring our students!