Investment bank head pays tribute to “courageous” first year analyst who died aged 22

When Lily-Rose Bury got a job on German bank Berenberg’s graduate programme in London in October 2021, she said she was “delighted” and “thankful.”

Bury joined the bank during COVID after graduating in physics from the UK’s Manchester University. But two months after joining, she died as a result of cancer that was diagnosed during her third year at university.

Next month, four people from Berenberg’s UK office, including managing partner David Mortlock and head of the European investment bank, Laura Janssens, will run 25km over a mountain in the Lake District to raise money for Sarcoma UK, in memory of the analyst. Together, they have already raised £12k out of £75k raised by Rose’s friends and family. 

Bury was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue rhabdomyosarcoma aged 20 and it had already spread around her body at the time of diagnosis. Despite this, she finished her physics degree, achieving a first class grade, and began her job at Berenberg.

Berenberg’s senior team describe Bury as quietly determined and praise her “remarkable achievement” in getting a top degree and starting work. Writing on her fundraising page, her friends and family say she “faced cancer with courage, strength, resilience and class,” during two years of treatment including chemotherapy and radiotherapy.  

“We still think about her a lot,” says Janssens. 

In 2020, a former Barclays assistant vice president died of cancer aged 31 after being unexpectedly diagnosed with a tumour on his adrenal gland. “A life, if lived well, is long enough,” he wrote in the Guardian weeks before his death. 

You can sponsor Berenberg’s runners here, or donate to Lily-Rose’s fund directly here. 

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