Leo Arduini was skiing in Italy last February when he realised just how much of a threat Covid-19 would pose to the way banks did business.

The 57-year-old was forced into a stint in quarantine as the virus swept across the country, a forewarning to the UK, which had yet to see many cases. When this ended, the head of Citigroup’s markets and securities services unit in Europe, the Middle East and Africa jumped on a plane to the bank’s regional headquarters in London.