Bankers rush to remove rona beards
Not long ago, having a beard was a good look in banking - indicative of being a partner at Goldman Sachs or having the sort of hipster affiliations that might suggest an ability to program in Python and make bread with your bare hands. But now that everyone's a baker and plenty of people have let their hair go during lockdown, a beard is less of a differentiator. Some people are shaving theirs off.
Those people include Richard Handler, the Instagram-loving CEO of Jefferies. Handler has published some before and after photos of himself on the social media channel, with and without lockdown facial hair. These, you can see below, as documented by his daughter.
Before (with beard):
Mid-beard
After...
Handler's beard is unlikely to be the only one perishing in the coming weeks. As banks start easing key people back into offices, many appear to be reevaluating their lockdown look. Plenty of people who responded to our recent survey said their hair needs attention and several said the past few months had been an occasion to stop shaving daily. "I finally grew a full beard and resorted to having a man bun for my hair," said an equities trader, while a macro trader at a German bank in London confessed to the lockdown cultivation of a "gnarly moustache."
"I would not be comfortable meeting clients with such an unkempt appearance," confessed one banker with hair gone feral.
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
