Naresh Sonpar: Diverse minds are the City’s greatest competitive asset
Naresh Sonpar is a Member of the City of London Common Council and Chair of the Education Board.
This article is part of a Neurodiversity Celebration Week series led by the City Belonging Project’s Neurodiversity in the City network. Sign up to learn more about upcoming network events.
I am not your conventional City figure, and that is precisely the point.
Today I serve as an elected Common Councillor at the City of London Corporation, Chair of the Education Board, a Director of Gresham College, and a Visiting Lecturer at Bayes Business School. Through these roles I’ve had the privilege of contributing to some of the Square Mile’s most influential institutions. I am also autistic, and I would be the first to tell you that my neurodivergent mind has been one of my greatest professional assets.
My career has taken a somewhat unusual path. I began in finance, working as a Fixed Income analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston before becoming a Vice President at BNP Paribas. I later founded PropWatch.com, one of Europe’s first property auction websites, and went on to manage a hedge fund through the turmoil of the 2008 financial crisis.
As a Partner at Banquo Credit Management, where I built the trading desk from scratch, my ability to hold complex risk models in my head and spot patterns others missed became a real advantage. In markets that humbled many, I was able to navigate volatility with precision — something I attribute to the intense focus and systems thinking that characterise my autistic mind. Those same instincts have also served me well in my civic work, including as a member of the City of London Police Economic and Cybercrime Committee.
My second career, in education, began with another unconventional step: I joined the Teach First programme as its oldest participant. I later became Head of Economics at the London Academy of Excellence in Stratford, where I raised A-Level attainment from 68% to 90% A*/B. That progress came from taking a forensic approach to student data and designing very precise interventions.
As the Founding Director of Guildhouse Business School, I created the University Foundation Programme in Financial Trading. Students used Bloomberg terminals, competed in the Student Investor Challenge, and visited the very institutions where I had once worked. What I learned — and what many educators miss — is that deep engagement, not passive instruction, is what truly transforms students.
Today, as Chair of the City of London Education Board, overseeing fifteen schools, and Chair of the London Careers Festival — one of the UK’s largest — I have the opportunity to help shape opportunities for thousands of young people.
Among them are many neurodiverse students who may feel the system was not designed for minds like theirs. I know that feeling well. One of my goals is to change that narrative.
The City has long prided itself on meritocracy and innovation, but diversity of thought remains an underutilised competitive advantage. Research consistently shows that neurodiverse teams outperform on complex problem-solving. Autism, in particular, is associated with enhanced pattern recognition, attention to detail, and original thinking.
My own career — spanning investment banking, entrepreneurship, hedge fund management, education leadership, and civic governance — reflects what can happen when different ways of thinking are recognised as strengths.
For me, neurodiversity is not something to be accommodated. It is something to be celebrated and strategically embraced.
If the City is to continue leading the world in financial services and global trade, it must draw from the full spectrum of human intelligence. My hope is that my story encourages us to rethink what leadership looks like, to question what talent we may be overlooking, and to recognise that the City’s greatest competitive asset may be the diversity of the minds within it.