"When you work for a bank, you're no more than a disposable number on a spreadsheet"

Leon Chervinsky seems like the sort of person who could hold a lot of ire. 

Chervinsky, who has a degree in electrical engineering from the New York Institute of Technology, spent two and a half decades doing the sorts of US banking jobs that can be a hard grind. He was running programs at the likes of Citi and Goldman Sachs. He was coaching leaders. He was pushing technological transformations. 

💥Follow us on WhatsApp for news alerts.💥

Six years ago, Chervinsky was let go in some extremely difficult personal circumstances. He hasn't worked in financial services since. He's not bitter. Instead, the ever-avuncular Chervinsky has set himself a new task of warning other people in his old industry that career-death can come when you're least expecting it and when it seems least appropriate.

When it does, he wants you to know how to handle it.

Chervinsky's own career ended when he was a senior vice president (SVP). It was during COVID, six months after a close relative had narrowly survived death in a New York ICU. The US bank he was working for decided to move his function to a lower cost location. When he was unable to move because of his sick relative, he was dismissed.  "I couldn't leave my family," he says. "My joke was that the commute would kill me but they said I didn't have to commute - I was fired. I'd been there for over a decade."

Chervinsky says his experience is a reminder that work isn't personal; it's procedural. "It's not just banks, it's all large organisations," he says. "They're looking for returns and if they can eliminate some jobs and save some dollars they will do that. You're no more than a number on a spreadsheet to them."

When he unearthed this reality, Chervinsky took three things before leaving his office forever: a paperweight given to him by a senior banker; his name from the door, and the photo of his children from the desk. With these in hand, he walked into a new life which has been more changeable than his corporate past. "I've worked in healthcare," says Chervinsky. "I've worked in cancer research."

He's ended up helping people like him, who leave long term corporate jobs with a sense of astonishment and loss. Six years out of banking, Chervinsky describes himself as an "identity coach:" he works to disentangle people from their jobs in a way that is becoming more necessary than ever. "People come to me and say that I was an MD in a bank and I'd like to do the same again," he tells us. "I say 'Buddy, those jobs aren't out there, and even if they are, they're likely to be very different to what you're used to.'"

If you lost your job unexpectedly, you need to be flexible, but before you can be flexible you will likely be lost and confused. Getting beyond this point means forging a whole new identity that has nothing to do with your job. "It is the most important work you have never been paid to do," reflects Chervinksy. 

Identity building is hardest when you're already out of work. It's easiest when you can use your job as a crutch and can test other things alongside it. Chervinksy's experience is a reminder that it's never to late to make sure your job isn't your sole defining feature. "Many, many of my clients are senior managers who've been laid off," he tells us. "Jobs are disappearing and changing, both for junior developers and for senior people. I have one client who was managing 70 developers. Now she's managing 20 humans and 40 bots." 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22  Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. 

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.