Tom King started his banking career as a broker at Smith Barney & Co in 1982 but it was as a mergers and acquisitions banker to the booming telecoms sector that he made his name in the firm’s New York-based business in the 1990s.

His work advising on some of the largest telecoms deals of the boom years as head of the then Salomon Smith Barney's telecommunications group, led the bank to move him to London in April 2000 as co-head of European M&A in an effort to grab a slice of deals in the region.