Walter Womersley joined Tanfield in 2022 after 27 years spent in senior roles in management, risk, trading and structuring within asset management and investment banking in Europe and Asia.
He is responsible for leading the delivery of Chambers’ business strategy and works closely with our members, practice management team and administrators to do so. A key element of this role is client facing. He ensures our clients get the excellent service for which Tanfield Chambers is known. Walter is responsible for building existing client relationships and developing new opportunities.
Walter’s background experience makes him uniquely suited to his role at Tanfield Chambers.
He was called to the Bar in 1995 and then decided to work in the financial markets. He started his career at Chemical Chase in London and then held various roles in investment banks in their credit derivatives, derivatives structuring and trading teams. He then moved to Asia where he held the roles of Head of Credit Trading and Structuring at Standard Bank Asia in Hong Kong and prior to that Head of Structuring Asia for Rabobank in Singapore and Hong Kong covering the structuring of FX, interest rate and credit products. He returned to the UK to launch WHARD Stewart, a macro hedge fund, where he was variously the COO, CCO and CRO.
He was then at Smart, a global FinTech company which operates a leading UK Master Trust pension scheme as well as a technology platform as a service to some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Initially joining as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Risk Officer overseeing their investment functions before pivoting to international expansion culminating in his appointment as General Manager of their US business tasked with helping set up their operations in Nashville, TN from scratch.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Warwick and an MSc in Finance from the London Business School.
