EMEA Chief Operating Officer: Rafia Aslam

Rafia Aslam

BSc Chemistry, 2016

First job:

A first aider at Warwick Students’ Union!

Advice for current students:

Never get comfortable and keep evaluating your circumstances, goals, and where you are in your career.

Best piece of advice you've had:

Know something about everything and everything about something.

EMEA Chief Operating Officer, Global Markets Distribution at UBS Investment Bank

Describe your current role and what attracted you to it.

My role as Chief Operating Officer for the investment bank’s execution sales business spans across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Our team collaborates with global leadership to essentially manage the salesforce and drive key strategic initiatives across the business.

Prior to this, I worked in the Investment Banking Division at UBS covering the healthcare sector, where I started my career. I facilitated several transactions for our corporate and private equity clients, which cemented my technical knowledge of corporate finance and widened my exposure to very senior stakeholders. Being able to learn first-hand how businesses are managed, the challenges they face, and how major strategic decisions are made is what ultimately drove me to consider a career as a COO as my next step.

What’s your favourite part of the role?

High levels of exposure to senior management and key decision-makers for the investment bank. This includes global heads of the business, regional presidents, chiefs of staff – just to name a few – and, in parallel, being in a position to inform and influence them, which is a very rare opportunity in itself.

What are the key skills you learnt at Warwick that have helped you with your career to date?

Going out of my comfort zone to learn for myself how things work, even if I initially have no idea. Networking also plays a big part and being able to advocate for yourself, showing up and taking ownership.

Did you have a specific career path in mind when you chose to study at Warwick?

Not at all. In fact, I was very much unsure about my career path and made it a priority to go to every careers fair in my first year to learn more about my options.

What top tips do you have for Warwick graduates who would like to work in your sector? *

Explore all your options to see what actually interests you, rather than just following the crowd. Attend as many insight days, talks, and seminars as you can fit in between lectures. Find a mentor or peer who is happy to guide you – that plays a huge part. Most importantly, do not be put off if you have to start from zero.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Hectic! It is heavily dependent on how the markets are trending and which projects are live. I usually have a close-knit meeting with my management first thing to discuss the key priorities for the day or week ahead, followed by a series of catch-ups with broader stakeholders to agree actions, ownership, and timelines. My afternoons are usually split into a series of focus blocks where I could be reviewing strategic plans, presenting to management, playing around with technical data to identify where we may need to better focus our efforts, then circling back to our salesforce to ensure they are tapped in and on top of the key asks from management.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were applying for jobs?

Change is really the only constant.