John Varley (banker)

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For other people named John Varley, see John Varley

John Silvester Varley (born c.1956) is a British banker, currently Group Chief Executive of Barclays Bank. Varley attended the Catholic Downside School and has a Master's degree in history and attended London's College of Law.

In 1981 he married Carolyn Thorn Pease, daughter of Sir Richard Thorn Pease, and in so doing married into the Quaker Pease family, whose bank became part of Barclays in 1902.

Varley has been with Barclays since 1982, when he joined in the Corporate Finance Department of the then Barclays Merchant Bank. Senior appointments with the successor bank, BZW (now Barclays Capital), included Deputy Chief Executive of BZW's Equity Division and head of BZW's offices in South East Asia. In 1995 he became Chairman of the Asset Management Division and from April 1998 to October 2000 was Chief Executive, Retail Financial Services. He joined the main Barclays board on 5 June 1998 and was Group Finance Director from 2000 until the end of 2003.

On 1 January 2004, Varley became Group Deputy Chief Executive, and on 1 September 2004 he succeeded Matt Barrett as Group Chief Executive of Barclays.