Leaving the City for the Slopes
Simon Piney at Work
Simon Piney with Finn
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Today's fantasy (made reality for one former BNP Paribas MD): moving from asphalt to powder. Leaving London for Canada. Trading money for poles.
Simon Piney spent 15 years in the City, ending his stint as an MD, Global Head of Equity Capital Markets at BNP Paribas. Now, he and his family live in Fernie, British Columbia, and Simon spends his days on the slopes. HITC finds out how this enviable transformation took place.
What prompted you to take a course from Nonstopski?
To be honest I had been toying with the idea of leaving and doing something completely different for some time. I had grown pretty tired of investment banking and my wife and I had spent a lot of time thinking about what else we could do. She was working as a fund manager at the time and was also keen to do something where we could spend more time together. The trouble with the City is it's easy to hang around for one more year and then one more year, and then all of sudden you've missed your chance.
I grew up in Switzerland and I knew that I loved skiing and mountain life. The problem with leaving investment banking is always coming up with a plan for what to do next, and eventually you spend too much time focused on that. I decided to take a different approach, which was to decide what I did not want to do for the rest of my life, and that was banking.
Don't get me wrong, investment banking can be a very interesting career, exciting, fast-moving and well-rewarded, and I have many happy memories of the time I spent in that field, and notably of some of the very talented people I had the good fortune to work with. I have an especially good memory of BNP Paribas and the people there.
However, the lifestyle grows very tiring, and I noticed it particularly as I began to travel more and more. I also found that the advent of new technology, supposedly to make life easier, made life far worse. Blackberries and global cellphones mean you never get a moment's peace wherever you are.
We set ourselves a deadline, which was when we had our first child; we would stop and do something else. As we had no good plan as what to do next, and wanted at least some type of project, we focused on skiing as it is something we both love. I did some research into ski instructing and quickly came across Nonstopski. I called them up and had a long chat with Rupert, who runs it. We talked about what the Canadian ski instructing course involved, about Fernie where they were running their course, and what Nonstopski offered.
The course was very appealing - 11 weeks of instruction in Fernie, they could arrange accommodation for us as we were unusual clients, coming as a family (by then we had a 6 month old son, Mac) and they could arrange for us to stay on after the course to hang out in Fernie. The course was also great in that it offered plenty beyond the ski instructing: first aid courses, avalanche awareness courses, language courses. You were also given a fixed number of credits (as part of the cost of the course) with which you could "buy" activities such as wilderness survival training, cat-skiing, back country skiing, etc. I compared it with a few other courses, but none came close.
Skiing sounded good, Canada sounded great, and Nonstopski offered an awesome course in a little place in the Rocky Mountains that receives an average 10 metres of snow a year. It sounded like a plan, so I went off and resigned. It had to be said that my plan was met with great consternation from some, and huge amusement from others. Plenty suggested that it would not be long before I was back.
When you went on your course to learn how to be a ski instructor, was it with a clear vision for a new career, or did that come later?
I thought that if all went well, if I passed my instructing exams, if I found a job and if we were accepted as immigrants into Canada, then it was something I would like to do. However, when I went into it, the idea was above all to have fun, ski a lot, meet some people from totally different walks of life and appreciate nature.
I felt that even if the course did not lead to a new career in instructing, it would give me the chance to take a breather , and work out what was next.
Clearly, your life has changed greatly as a ski instructor. What do you love most about your post-City life?
There are lots of things, from being able to spend time with my wife and family; we now have 2 boys, and spending time with them is great. Knowing I will be home at a decent time instead of stuck on a runway somewhere is always a wonderful. All of those things are great, but above all is to live in a community surrounded by people who embrace life and nature.
Ski instructing is great fun. You get to work with a fantastic bunch of people at Ski School, you get to ski the most amazing snow you can imagine. And it's good fun taking classes out - your clients are in a good mood - they're on vacation, they've paid to spend time with you so are eager to hear what you have to say. It's very rewarding improving people's experience - whether it's helping a strong skier down a tough line they've always wanted to do, or a beginner who suddenly 'gets it'. What's more, when I go home at 4pm, no one calls me at home with conference calls or sends Powerpoint presentations to my Blackberry for comments. If I had a Blackberry, that is.
What's your favourite thing about living in Fernie compared to London?
The original plan, assuming we went the ski instructing route, was to move to Whistler, being the most obvious ski resort in Canada when you sit in London. However, it was not long before we grew to love Fernie. The skiing is big mountain skiing at its most unrefined, the people of Fernie are wonderful. When it snows, a 20cm rule is invoked: if it snows more than 20cm overnight, shops don't open in the morning so employees can go ski. How wonderful is that?
Fernie's a small place (about 5,000 people), and you really notice the way that people make an effort to help the community. Lots of people volunteer their time to make local institutions work. My wife is on the board of the local pre-school and runs one the mums' groups in town. I'm on the board of Fernie Search and Rescue, and we spend a lot of time training in all sorts of disciplines so we are best able to help people in trouble out in the wilderness.
What advice do you have for those interested in following a similar path out of the City?
The last thing I would want to do is sound preachy - we love what we did, and there is not a day where I regret the decision we took. My only regret is that we did not do it sooner. However, that's not to say it is for everyone. Many people do not like small-town living, it gets seriously cold in the winters (I spend a couple of weeks a year out on the mountain at temperatures well below minus 20c), and I get paid very little for ski instructing, but living here is much cheaper than London, so that helps.
The only thing I would say if you've wanted to get out for some time but have yet to do it is to come up with a plan and go for it.
At worst, check out the Nonstopski website.
You never know!
What prompted you to take a course from Nonstopski?
To be honest I had been toying with the idea of leaving and doing something completely different for some time. I had grown pretty tired of investment banking and my wife and I had spent a lot of time thinking about what else we could do. She was working as a fund manager at the time and was also keen to do something where we could spend more time together. The trouble with the City is it's easy to hang around for one more year and then one more year, and then all of sudden you've missed your chance.
I grew up in Switzerland and I knew that I loved skiing and mountain life. The problem with leaving investment banking is always coming up with a plan for what to do next, and eventually you spend too much time focused on that. I decided to take a different approach, which was to decide what I did not want to do for the rest of my life, and that was banking.
Don't get me wrong, investment banking can be a very interesting career, exciting, fast-moving and well-rewarded, and I have many happy memories of the time I spent in that field, and notably of some of the very talented people I had the good fortune to work with. I have an especially good memory of BNP Paribas and the people there.
However, the lifestyle grows very tiring, and I noticed it particularly as I began to travel more and more. I also found that the advent of new technology, supposedly to make life easier, made life far worse. Blackberries and global cellphones mean you never get a moment's peace wherever you are.
We set ourselves a deadline, which was when we had our first child; we would stop and do something else. As we had no good plan as what to do next, and wanted at least some type of project, we focused on skiing as it is something we both love. I did some research into ski instructing and quickly came across Nonstopski. I called them up and had a long chat with Rupert, who runs it. We talked about what the Canadian ski instructing course involved, about Fernie where they were running their course, and what Nonstopski offered.
The course was very appealing - 11 weeks of instruction in Fernie, they could arrange accommodation for us as we were unusual clients, coming as a family (by then we had a 6 month old son, Mac) and they could arrange for us to stay on after the course to hang out in Fernie. The course was also great in that it offered plenty beyond the ski instructing: first aid courses, avalanche awareness courses, language courses. You were also given a fixed number of credits (as part of the cost of the course) with which you could "buy" activities such as wilderness survival training, cat-skiing, back country skiing, etc. I compared it with a few other courses, but none came close.
Skiing sounded good, Canada sounded great, and Nonstopski offered an awesome course in a little place in the Rocky Mountains that receives an average 10 metres of snow a year. It sounded like a plan, so I went off and resigned. It had to be said that my plan was met with great consternation from some, and huge amusement from others. Plenty suggested that it would not be long before I was back.
When you went on your course to learn how to be a ski instructor, was it with a clear vision for a new career, or did that come later?
I thought that if all went well, if I passed my instructing exams, if I found a job and if we were accepted as immigrants into Canada, then it was something I would like to do. However, when I went into it, the idea was above all to have fun, ski a lot, meet some people from totally different walks of life and appreciate nature.
I felt that even if the course did not lead to a new career in instructing, it would give me the chance to take a breather , and work out what was next.
Clearly, your life has changed greatly as a ski instructor. What do you love most about your post-City life?
There are lots of things, from being able to spend time with my wife and family; we now have 2 boys, and spending time with them is great. Knowing I will be home at a decent time instead of stuck on a runway somewhere is always a wonderful. All of those things are great, but above all is to live in a community surrounded by people who embrace life and nature.
Ski instructing is great fun. You get to work with a fantastic bunch of people at Ski School, you get to ski the most amazing snow you can imagine. And it's good fun taking classes out - your clients are in a good mood - they're on vacation, they've paid to spend time with you so are eager to hear what you have to say. It's very rewarding improving people's experience - whether it's helping a strong skier down a tough line they've always wanted to do, or a beginner who suddenly 'gets it'. What's more, when I go home at 4pm, no one calls me at home with conference calls or sends Powerpoint presentations to my Blackberry for comments. If I had a Blackberry, that is.
What's your favourite thing about living in Fernie compared to London?
The original plan, assuming we went the ski instructing route, was to move to Whistler, being the most obvious ski resort in Canada when you sit in London. However, it was not long before we grew to love Fernie. The skiing is big mountain skiing at its most unrefined, the people of Fernie are wonderful. When it snows, a 20cm rule is invoked: if it snows more than 20cm overnight, shops don't open in the morning so employees can go ski. How wonderful is that?
Fernie's a small place (about 5,000 people), and you really notice the way that people make an effort to help the community. Lots of people volunteer their time to make local institutions work. My wife is on the board of the local pre-school and runs one the mums' groups in town. I'm on the board of Fernie Search and Rescue, and we spend a lot of time training in all sorts of disciplines so we are best able to help people in trouble out in the wilderness.
What advice do you have for those interested in following a similar path out of the City?
The last thing I would want to do is sound preachy - we love what we did, and there is not a day where I regret the decision we took. My only regret is that we did not do it sooner. However, that's not to say it is for everyone. Many people do not like small-town living, it gets seriously cold in the winters (I spend a couple of weeks a year out on the mountain at temperatures well below minus 20c), and I get paid very little for ski instructing, but living here is much cheaper than London, so that helps.
The only thing I would say if you've wanted to get out for some time but have yet to do it is to come up with a plan and go for it.
At worst, check out the Nonstopski website.
You never know!
