Barclays' cuts include a longserving female financial sponsors MD

As we reported earlier this month, Barclays is cutting "a few hundred underperformers". They include junior bankers and members of Barclays' sustainable banking team. They also include a female managing director in the London financial sponsors group.

Multiple sources say Olga Tavolzhanskaya, a financial sponsors-focused MD at Barclays is leaving. Both Barclays and Tavolzhanskaya herself declined to comment. 

Tavolzhanskaya spent nearly 15 years at Barclays and became an MD in 2016. It's though that her exit has been on the cards for a while, but has been expedited recently.

Barclays is cutting £188m ($236m) in costs from its investment bank by 2026. While it's cutting in London, it's still hiring senior bankers in New York after losing a raft of ex-Lehman people last year. Recent New York hires include Alejandra Fernandez, a former executive director at JPMorgan, who joined as a managing director this month.

Tavolzhanskaya's disappearance in London may bode badly for financial sponsors bankers everywhere. Banks have been waiting for financial sponsors deal activity to revive. In theory, this is about to happen (UBS recently hired Biliana Barboutova from Deutsche Bank for this reason). Tavolzhanskaya's exit suggests bankers are also trimming costs while they wait.

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