Nicholas R. Avery

Nicky has lived in several countries before ending up in Southern California. He has worked for large corporations and small businesses. He presently has a small business in a field which was not even on his radar nearly 60 years ago.

Tell us about your career path since graduation.

More an odyssey, perhaps, than a path: changes in the economy led me into separate careers. I started out as a management trainee at Pirelli in the Footwear Division in 1968. I learned a lot in my first “tour” and little in my second so I joined Bank of America back in London. I was to become a trainee foreign exchange dealer but it took a year of drudgery to get there. I turned out to be reasonably competent and thus began 18 years in capital markets as a trader and broker. In that time I also worked in Paris and Luxembourg before leaving for the USA in 1979. I was a broker in New York before ending up again as a F.X. trader in Los Angeles. The writing was already on the wall for the forex market in LA but I did not wish to leave LA for another trading centre. I qualified as a real estate broker at night school then brokered commercial mortgages for 3 years but later joined a developer and beginning to do reasonably well when the S&L collapsed the real estate market. I survived another few months but I like to eat. Fortunately, a school friend in London needed packaging machinery from the USA, so I ended up selling bag, closing and handling equipment to him and in California for about five years before meeting my mentor in the telecom business in 1994. I was able to teach them the new OS/2 operating system while they tried to teach me telephony. In 1998 I went out on my own and, as packaging equipment faded away for me, focused on small business data networks and telephony (now VoIP) and that is what I am still doing 30 years later. My schooling was in Classics and degree in Economics and Politics & Government from Kent. My working life is probably a better argument for education than for vocational training: such training as I needed, I picked up as needed along the way. I think it depends on whether one is an all-rounder or a specialist by nature.

What does a typical workday look like for you?

While the possibilities are hardly unlimited, I cannot say any day is typical. I may get a call from a customer with a breakdown, I may have an install or upgrade planned, I may be calling a telco, I may be calling tech support, I may be making a sales presentation .... 

Can you share a professional highlight from your career so far?

Probably two: opening and running the brokerage in Luxembourg and my last broking job in New York. In Luxembourg in 1974 we started with 4 staff including myself, 4 phones, a field telephone to London, a garden table and chairs and a few local customers. We ended up four years later with 6-7 staff, furniture, professional equipment and customers in half-a-dozen countries.

In 1983 I joined a start-up in New York. Again there were 4 of us but this time around a coffee table and with only 2 telephones. We did not have the resources to play in short term markets so we focused on medium term CDs and deposits and ate a lot of people’s lunch. It was great fun and very profitable until management was replaced and the company expanded.

How did your time at Kent help you achieve your current career?

No shade on Kent but Economics and Politics & Government was more of a door-opener to capital markets than a qualification. What one learns from education is applicable beyond the immediate subject in the sense of learning to analyse, describe and execute is necessary in most lines of work.

What advice would you give to our current/prospective students who are looking to get into the same line of work?

Capital markets have become a pretty brutal game compared with my time. A degree in quantitative economics or MBA is often required. Real estate is fundamentally a people business but, at least in commercial as opposed to single family property, to do well requires knowledge of real estate law, the technicalities of buildings, a basic knowledge of construction and an idea of how certain businesses work (e.g. hospitality and manufacturing). Almost no one thinks of packaging equipment as a career. The machinery is fascinating and ingenious, the applications are always challenging not least because of the people involved.

As the technology progresses, I believe the days of leveraging amateur knowledge of computers have passed. An MSc in computer science and competence in at least one of a programming language and/or database programming would now seem to be the minimum.

Do you have a favourite memory from your time at Kent?

I do not really have favourites. I had a great time. I was a founder/president of four societies, dabbled briefly in student politics, met a lot of smart, friendly and fun people. I even enjoyed my studies.

Is there anything you would do differently if you could repeat your time at Kent?

I would read more in my subject.

Are you still in touch with other Kent alumni or academics?

I have remained friendly with several classmates and have recently reconnected with some after many years - it does not seem to make a difference. Many of my professors are, unfortunately, gone but I am still friendly with a couple.

What are your future ambitions?

I am First 500, so it may be a bit late to ask that question. Knowing I no longer wanted to be an engine driver, I asked all my parents' friends - mostly very successful - about what they did and, at the end, was not much the wiser. At age 21 I never had a plan so much as a vague idea of how I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. (This was a bad idea as I am not temperamentally suited to bureaucracy.) I did not have a lot of offers largely because I applied for work for which I was not qualified. If I had it to do again, I would investigate very systematically for what I am qualified and to what I am suited rather than taking the first offer (although I took the second offer).