Welcome to Merchant Taylors’ School

General Sir Richard Barrons KCB CBE served as Commander Joint Forces Command, one of the six ‘Chiefs of Staff’ leading the UK Armed Forces, 2013-2016. He was responsible for 23000 people worldwide and a budget of £4.3 billion. His military career included the last decade of the Cold War and leadership from Captain to General on military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a global role with CAE working on government relations and strategy, primarily around the evolution of national and alliance synthetic environments, and his other work includes Managing Partner of Wychwood Partners and Co-Chairman of Universal Defence & Security Solutions. He advises and comments widely on senior leadership, defence and security.

Sir Paul is CIO and Chairman of Marshall Wace LLP, a global hedge fund headquartered in London, with $50bn in AUM. He is founder and owner of UnHerd Media and is a founding Trustee of Ark, the children’s charity, and Chairman of Ark Schools, which manages 39 primary and secondary academies in London, Birmingham, Hastings and Portsmouth. Sir Paul served as Lead-Non-Executive Director at the UK Department for Education from 2013 to 2016.

In April 2015, he co-founded the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at LSE. He was co-editor of The Orange Book, editor of The Tail and author of “10 ½ lessons from Experience”. Sir Paul was knighted in Her Majesty’s Birthday Honours’ list in June 2016 for services to education and philanthropy. He holds an MBA from INSEAD Business School and a BA (Hons) from St John’s College, Oxford University.

Jason studied French and German at Trinity College, Oxford during which time he lived in Paris for a year. After Oxford, Solomons took a postgraduate course in journalism at City University, London before beginning his career as a journalist and the first graduate trainee at The Daily Express. There, he became showbiz editor and then film critic, before leaving in 1998 for The Mail on Sunday and a freelance career.

Solomons has hosted the Guardian Film Weekly podcast since 2007, making 330 shows with star guests and weekly reviews. He is a regular guest on BBC News, Sky News and BBC radio, where he presents a weekly film hour on the BBC’s London station, BBC London 94.9, on the Robert Elms Show.

An expert in world, French and British cinema, Solomons is often called-for as a live host, leading QnA sessions, presenting the opening and closing gala red carpets at the London Film Festival in Leicester Square and hosting the London Critics’ Circle Film awards at BFI Southbank.

He has interviewed Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Nicole Kidman, Danny Boyle, Mike Leigh, Juliet Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, the Coen Brothers and Spike Lee.

Solomons is fluent in French – he is a guest reviewer on France Culture’s film radio show La Dispute – German and Spanish and in May 2012 he covered his 15th Cannes Film Festival as co-host of the online show Variety Live @ Cannes.

In 2013, he presented Annie Hall as part of the season of The Film That Changed My Life at London’s Barbican Centre. His new 16-part TV series In Conversation began in July 2013 airing in the UK on Sky Arts HD, featuring in-depth career interviews with guests such as Terence Stamp, Tim Roth, Gael Garcia Bernal, Gemma Arterton, Mira Nair, Brian Cox and Richard Gere. A second series has been commissioned.

Rishi Khosla OBE is the CEO and co-founder of OakNorth, a financial technology company that’s transforming commercial lending. Prior to this, Rishi was the CEO and co-founder of Copal Amba, a financial research firm which was scaled to 3,000 employees and sold to Moody’s Corporation in 2014. He is also an early-stage investor in Paypal and Indiabulls. He has an MSC in Accounting & Finance from the LSE and BSc in Economics from UCL.

Varun is Head of the Fintech Hub at the Bank of England, leading on the Digital Economy including Open Data, Digital ID and Artificial Intelligence. After leaving Merchant Taylors, he studied Economics at Churchill College, Cambridge. He gained a Masters in Economics from UCL and joined the Bank in 2008. Through the financial crisis, his analysis helped guide the Monetary Policy Committee’s decisions on interest rates. He then supported the Financial Policy Committee in their goal to maintain financial stability, leading on the Bank’s risk assessment of Fintech developments and crypto assets. And in 2019, he delivered a review on the Future of Finance, looking at what the Bank could do to enable a financial system in the future, which continues to be both innovative and resilient.

Nick co-founded DesignMyNight in 2010. Coming from a marketing background at L’Oreal, where he launched 2 brands into the UK, he grew DesignMyNight into an 8 million views a month website with three ground-breaking B2B hospitality systems with over 15,000 customers. DesignMyNight was acquired by The Access Group in November 2017. He now hosts a top 5 global business podcast, Pitch Deck, and has founded a new spin on venture for startups; Horseplay Ventures - a Startup Playground, where he has already invested in 40 startups in the UK and US.

Efe is a member of Russell Reynolds’ Healthcare Sector, based in London. He is a trusted client advisor, working with leading organizations globally to recruit, develop and assess top talent from a range of industry verticals. With more than a decade of consulting experience in both the UK and US, Efe has developed a particular focus in medical devices and diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, as well as working with private equity clients to help build effective leadership teams across portfolio companies.

Efe joined Russell Reynolds Associates from a boutique global executive search and advisory firm focused exclusively on the private equity space, where he worked in both London and New York. Most recently, Efe led the North American Healthcare and Life Sciences team, after previously heading the European practice. Over the course of eight years, he led engagements to identify, evaluate and recruit board directors, CEOs and CFOs for private equity-backed companies, as well as advising clients on potential acquisitions. Earlier, Efe worked for Financial Dynamics (part of FTI Consulting), where he provided strategic communications advice to FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies. Efe holds an MA in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Oxford.

Chrishan Raja is an Associate at Wall Street law firm, Cleary Gottlieb, based in London, having previously worked in New York and Washington, D.C. His practice focuses on the UK, EU and US aspects of international capital markets transactions, with a particular interest in the emerging markets. He represents both issuers and underwriters in connection with fundraising and liability management transactions, involving both equity and debt securities. He also advises listed companies on their continuing disclosure obligations.

Chrishan was Head Monitor of the school in 2006-2007. After leaving MTS, he read Law at Magdalen College, Oxford, before completing master’s degree at Harvard Law School.

Nick studied International Relations & Global Issues (MSci) at the University of Nottingham, with an exchange year at McGill University, Canada. After graduating, he joined Accenture as a Strategy Analyst where he specialized in retail and commercial strategy. After 2 years, he joined Amazon where he has spent the last 5 years in a number of commercial and program management roles. Currently he is Head of EU Business Operations for Amazon Shipping, Amazon’s own shipping service provider which provides parcel delivery services to e-commerce retailers across the UK. He leads an international team responsible for Strategy, Insights & Planning and Sales Operations & CRM.

Umar went to Imperial College London to study medicine. There, he received a first-class BSc in Medical Sciences with Global Health. After qualifying in 2016, he moved to the West Midlands to complete his foundation programme, and is now a Junior Doctor training in Psychiatry. Outside of his career, Umar has written widely on contemporary affairs, publishing in outlets such as the Huffington Post, Belfast Telegraph and Evolve Politics. He has also co-founded a platform on religion, philosophy and science that has garnered over a million views on YouTube. He credits MTS for allowing him to explore a variety of passions, giving him the experience in school that others can only attain at university.

Lanre is the senior research associate at Menai Financial Group, a market maker and asset management firm in the digital assets industry. He's has been conducting research and data analysis on the digital asset and cryptocurrency market for more than five years and has an academic background in Philosophy, Economics, and Statistics.

Dapo joined Harrow St Marys at under-5 level and moved into the youth system at Chelsea, having turned down the chance of a rival offer from Arsenal. He left Chelsea at the age of 14 so that academy football did not get in the way of his schooling. At the age of 15, Dapo moved to Canada and spent time in Toronto FC's reserve squad. He trained with the first team and played with the likes of Jermain Defoe.

Dapo returned to England at the age of 18 to study a civil engineering degree at Loughborough University. He spent time playing youth football at Barnet and Tooting & Mitcham United. He went on to play for the Loughborough University football team whilst studying. In February 2017, Dapo signed for National League Club Solihull Moors. Four days after joining the Moors, he scored on his debut, scoring the final goal in a 3–0 win over Sutton United. He turned fully professional at the club in the summer of 2017, switching his engineering degree at Loughborough University for an online course. Despite leaving the club half-way through the campaign, he was Solihull's top-scorer for the entire 2017-18 with 11 goals in 35 matches.

On 1 February 2018, Dapo signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with West Ham United. On 31 January 2019, he joined League Two side Oldham Athletic on loan until the end of the 2018-19 season. In total he made four starts and six substitute appearances during his time at Boundary Park, playing under manager Paul Scholes. He returned to League Two on a half-season loan with Manfield Town on 29 August 2019. He scored his first Football League goal on 12 October, in a 6–1 win over former club Oldham Athletic at Field Mill; he also won a penalty in the game. On 23 January 2021, Dapo made his debut for West Ham, appearing as a substitute and scoring in a 4–0 FA Cup win against Doncaster Rovers. Afolayan moved on loan to Bolton Wanderers on 1 February 2021. He scored his only goal for Bolton on the final day of the season, scoring Bolton's second goal in a 4–1 win against Crawley Town, the win confirming Bolton's promotion to League One. On 27 May 2021 Dapo signed a permanent three-year contract with Bolton.