Making Your Own Path: Nousheh Paris VP FX at American Express & Jonathan Bowman-Perks: Inspiring Leadership Interview

Nousheh Paris – Vice President Foreign Exchange at American Express.

Nousheh is an experienced commercial leader in the Financial sector where she has enjoyed a 19 year career within American Express. During this time she has held numerous Sales, Business Development positions; initially as an individual contributor and in the past 10 years in various leadership roles.  Currently she is the Vice President and General Manager of American Express’s Foreign Exchange and International Payments business in the UK.  Nousheh comes from a scientific background where she studied Biochemistry, and then obtained an MSc(Eng) in Biochemical Engineering. She holds an MBA specialising in online branding. In her spare time she enjoys any sporting-related activities especially tennis, cycling and running. She has completed two marathons and an Olympic distance triathlon where she raised significant funds for various charities.

Nousheh has learnt from experience the hard way to overcome challenges setbacks and disappointments. Her upbringing with her parents in Iran was fascinating and during the nightly air raids in the war with Iraq she and her parents would move to a small building outside Tehran to carry on with her homework and getting some sleep before returning in the morning.Her father and academic eventually managed to escape from Iran to work at Bath University bringing his family with him. She learnt to get on with a variety of different people having arrived with very little English as an immigrant and with the discrimination that that in tales in some parts of this country. In her role at Cargill she learnt fast and was often the only female in a sea of male colleagues. American Express has been the making of her and she was recommended by her direct reports as a very inspiring leader to appear on this series.

She holds an MBA in Branding and General Management from Henley business school and BSC In biochemistry and general management from University of London Royal Holloway followed by a Masters degree from the University of Birmingham in Biochemical engineering.