Being Kieran Prior
May 2008 – Working on the noisy, frenetic trading desk at Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s London offices on Fleet Street earlier this decade, Kieran Prior and John Yeatts, two bright and ambitious 20-somethings from very different worlds, became close friends. Prior, a gregarious, wisecracking proprietary trader from the gritty outer suburbs of Manchester, took a liking to the soft-spoken Yeatts, a first-year financial analyst and native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Though Prior, then 23, was just a year older than Yeatts when they met in 2002, he enjoyed dispensing practical advice, teasing the American about his Saturday night dates and taking him out for pints of beer after work.
Yeatts returned the favor. …