Characterising herself as an "avid Guardian reader", she volunteered for an interview, writing: "I came into the City almost by chance when I was recruited directly from university. Yes, it pays well, but if I wanted to live in London, my parents weren't about to bankroll me. I'm 25 and earn about three times the average national income, but there is no reason many others couldn't do the same if they chose this career over others. I'm state-educated, from a suburb in a city up north – the same social mobility recent governments have been so in favour of."

We are meeting in a coffee shop near Bank, in the heart of the City. The elegantly dressed investment management adviser orders a cappuccino.

"I work with investment management firms and banking divisions, the organisations that invest billions of pounds for private and public pension funds, companies and wealthy individuals. Basically, investment managers try to use money to make more money, and are financed by the margin they take on this. The money you pay into your pension fund is likely to be managed by an investment management firm.

Investment management is quite an operation. You've got the actual portfolio managers – often a rather unique, very bright breed. They are surrounded by advisers looking deep into sectors or financial products to advise where the best profits might be, as well as the standard sales department, legal, compliance, marketing, human resources…

"You might compare the set-up to that in football. At Manchester United you've got two dozen players who actually play the game, and then a much larger entourage of technical staff, commercial people, PR and security, and all the rest necessary to run the operation. And just as Wayne Rooney gets paid a lot of money, the same is true for these high-flyer portfolio managers. The rest of us earn a good living, but nothing as spectacular as those who get the media attention. Asset management divisions can charge quite hefty provision for their services. Then again, when they're good, they make thousands of times more money for their client than they take home in pay.

My specific role is advising investment management firms on how to structure their front office operations – the part of the firm where the trades are made. I run big change projects which restructure or update firms' systems, for example to meet stricter regulatory requirements or keep up with the changing pace of investment technology.

As a rule people in organisations are pretty resistant to change, and knowing how to overcome that is crucial for success in my job. You need to figure out why people are resisting, and how to bring them round. Usually it's because they fear their job will no longer exist after the reorganisation. Or because it means a lot of extra work for them. Or because change means a disruption of the status quo and its hierarchies at that point.

You need to be persuasive and it takes time to learn how. When I walk into the room people think: who is this kid? It helps to have qualifications, that's why I have letters after my name. You need to learn to speak to people as equals, so you have to actually understand why people prefer to trade the way they do, what their investment strategies are and how these impact the way operations are structured. So technical as well as financial expertise. I have a maths and economics background, but I also learned from watching other people do it. People skills are difficult to teach at university. See four or five different people do the same thing, and then imitate the bits that fit with you.

Why finance? There is this strange mentality against the financial sector. I've worked in mainland Europe and they would love to have our financial sector. About a quarter of the money managed by UK companies comes from abroad. Finance is one area where Britain still has a competitive advantage. I'd never support the Tories but they do seem to get the importance of finance for our country. This is what we do well. Don't kill it if you don't have anything else for back-up. And we don't. We lost our manufacturing base.

I knew that I was going to spend a huge part of my life in an office. Once you accept that, then why not in a well-paid job? And if you're under 40 the salaries are better than any other sector, the work can be interesting and it's a really sociable job.

There are some aspects of the financial sector I would like to see change – not least its attitude to women. When I was studying at university, it was 50-50 male and female. You felt there was simply no difference. Then we enter the workplace and I have seen peers whom I knew from university change their behaviour. They were influenced by older men, and their sexism. Gender discrimination has never hindered my progression, but you know you are being judged on different criteria to "the boys". And it has made me very uncomfortable on occasions – when you wine and dine an older male client, being a young woman need not be a disadvantage.

As a woman going into finance you know it's a male-dominated environment. There's some self-selection here, only women who are not put off by that, or who actually like such an environment, go in. A disproportionate amount of women in finance are attractive – I don't think that's a coincidence. The stereotype fits, generally speaking: women in finance are bright, ambitious and hard working.

That's the under-30 crowd, whose credo is: work hard, party harder. Between 30 and 40 it gets tricky with maternity leave and the 70-hour working week. The more mature women, the ones who stay on, they do find their place. These days there are quite some role models around.

I know that when I walk past the desks at some divisions in an investment bank, the guys are instant messaging each other with score cards. It's a group mentality thing. I know guys who are totally lovely on their own, but at work they are, excuse my French, complete pricks. A big job in finance makes a man more desirable for many women. A big job in finance does not make a woman more desirable for men – there is still some vague notion of it being "emasculating" for the woman to be the breadwinner.

You do end up with more and more friends who work in this industry. The networking is very important and people are quite inclusive. At my company most people are under 35, it's a fun environment. You need to be friends with your colleagues if you are going to spend so much time together. It's also nice to have people who understand that it's not your choice to answer that email in the middle of the night. Many of my friends are in steady nine-to-five jobs, like teachers. Cancelling means something different to them than it does to me. I cancel plans all the time, it comes with the territory.

Is there a class divide? I don't see it. I was quite surprised about that, but especially with younger people, it doesn't seem to play a role. I have friends from all backgrounds, and I'm not sure people are able to make an immediate judgement on my background. Maybe this gets different when you have kids. Then the private versus state school plays up. Your choices begin to more reflect the social background you associate yourself with.

Why not simply send your kids to a good state school? I would agree with you completely, if this weren't London. Here things are different – even earning great money, it's not easy to afford a normal-sized family house in an area with community and great schools. I can see how that might be a divisive issue; what if your husband doesn't work in finance, doesn't have a very good salary, and you do? Then the decision where to live, where to send your kids to school gets complicated. I'd be very happy to work in finance while my future husband focuses on the family. I'm not sure you can both work in a job like this and be great parents. There's too much pressure.

On balance I am against affirmative action. I would definitely like to see more senior women in finance, but quotas are not a solution. It makes it too difficult for the women who might earn their position but will be seen to have benefited from positive discrimination. There will always be fewer women at the top than men. If you look at CEOs, these people give over their whole life to their job. I don't think women are as likely to do that as men. In our current society, the tipping point with the work-life balance is different for men than it is for women.

My salary? There's much secrecy about pay. Everything gets negotiated individually and my sense is that in such situations women are at a disadvantage. There I am, sitting down with my boss. A typical guy is not uncomfortable asking for a £20k rise and then getting £5k. Women are more likely to just take what they are being offered, and obviously that's going to be less than when you negotiate. You don't ask, you don't get.

At my company you can't discuss your salary with colleagues. I make around the £60k mark – but can I point out that I pay £1,500 to Her Majesty's Treasury in taxes, every month."