Academic Research: Innovation and Networks in the Finance Industry

I’m a Master Student from the Dept. of Geography of the University of Hamburg, Germany and trying to understand how innovations and the creation of new financial instruments work. I would love to hear from your expertise and experiences to get some insights for a research project:

• To whom do you talk about your work/new ideas? Just to collegues in your firm or also other folks in the same business but in different firms?
• Where do you meet these people?
• Where do you meet in your “free time”? Like lunch breaks, after work or at weekends? Do you regulary talk about work in these informal spaces? Which places are important and why these? Does it make a difference for business talks whether you meet in a meet room or in a more informal setting, like restaurants, bars, etc.?
• It seems to be important to have a big network, how do you get into these networks? How important is physical closeness, i.e. working in the same city, for networking? How important is your network for professional financial decisions and in the context of innovation? Did Covid change how important face-to-face physical contact is?

Thanks a lot! Really exited to get to know your point of view!