Shemara Wikramanayake is in residence. She’s in a red jacket, sitting behind her desk, tapping away on a computer like so many others in Macquarie Group’s new headquarters at 1 Elizabeth Street, just off Martin Place in Sydney.

You can see the CEO from the client floor, home to Macquarie’s 24-seat boardroom – where chairman Glenn Stevens rules from one side of the oval table and all seats have their own microphone – a nearby dining room, and long corridors of small and medium-sized meeting rooms.