Kate Grussing has the kind of curriculum vitae that big companies cry out for. A graduate of Wellesley, one of the historic “seven sisters” American women’s colleges, she has an MBA from the US Tuck School of Business and a track record at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey and J.P. Morgan. Last summer, having just turned 40, Grussing decided to step off the corporate ladder. It was not an easy move. She had been chief operating officer of J.P. Morgan’s European equity business, co-headed its merger integration team in the region and overseen an award-winning diversity initiative. The corporate animal inside her loved the challenge and was hungry for more.

But the price of success had become too great. With the youngest of her four children due to start school in a year, she wanted to seize back control of her life. That ultimately proved incompatible with the macho, long-hours culture of investment banking. “There’s a persona, an image, that many people feel they have to live up to,” says the softly spoken, London-based American. “In a good week I was able to take my kids to school once a week, but I still felt guilty. I knew a lot of my colleagues had been at work since 6.30am and I would sneak in after 9am on that one day. I would stay till 9pm - and still feel bad.”