To Great Portland Street for dinner at Lotus Thai and drinks at Loom bar to celebrate my friend C securing a place on the MBA program at Harvard Business School. She has just handed in her notice at KMPG but hasn’t yet been able to make any plans for travelling before she starts as her passport is being kept by the US Embassy for review before they issue her visa.

Blogging of handing in notices, N who was in C’s class at my university which was a couple of years ahead of myself and his sister P, is planning to leave his job as well. He told us that he will soon be joining his family business, a construction firm headquartered in Mumbai, to oversee the establishment of operations in the Middle East. This will no doubt be quite a change from his existing role on a front office desk at Citigroup’s investment bank, but I can hardly pass comment having undergone a similar career revolution myself. In fact, the route from City firms to family businesses seems to be becoming almost ubiquitous amongst the sons and daughters of successful Asian business owners with any links to London. Having had a long chat with P at the party as well, I would be surprised if she didn’t leave her own prestigious City job to follow the same path soon.