THE DAY THE FINANCIAL SECTOR CRASHED IN 2007, CANARY WHARF WAS SHROUDED IN CLOUD. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS STUNNING, A COLLECTIVE HUMBLE APOLOGY. THE FOUNDER OF STARLING BANK, ANNE BODEN WORKED THROUGH BANKING’S MOST SHAMEFUL GEKKOESQUE ERA AND, WHEN THE TIME CAME TO FLEDGE THAT GLASS AND STEEL EYRIE, HER OBJECTIVE WAS TO CHANGE THE FACE OF BANKING FOR GOOD.

I took my degree in Human Biology at King’s College London – I guess the only link there being the human part – but towards the end of my studies, I decided that life in the lab wasn’t for me and I started to think about options. I started my career with a short stint working in recruitment, where I also commenced my CIPD studies. I joined an evening course and it was there that I was chatting with a fellow student, who suggested I apply for an entry-level HR position at the insurance firm Hiscox. That’s where I really started my HR career, and it was five years covering every square inch of the HR field, where I rose to the position of HR manager. Hiscox was part of the traditional London insurance market, its differentiation was a real emphasis on quality of product and quality of its people. At this time, the company was broadening its retail insurance products, as well as the traditional London market operation and I worked on setting up some of the regional offices outside of the capital in; Colchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. This really opened me up to a new dimension of HR, because it was back to basics, setting up new sites, recruitment and the myriad of hygiene issues. It was engaging working with some great people, but I was coming to the point where I was thinking about the next stage of my career and whether to continue as a generalist practitioner or specialise. I had started to focus more on the employee relations area; I studied a post-graduate diploma in employment law and also worked on compensational benefits projects. So, I had covered a lot of bases.

I wanted to stay in financial services and an opportunity came up to go into banking with ABN AMRO, as a Senior HR Business Partner working with their corporate finance function. This was a real investment bank, a hugely challenging environment. During my time there, I took a role working in transactional banking and ended up being responsible for that area of the business right across Europe. Later on, the financial crisis (of 2008-2009) was to change the world of work in the sector – for the better it has to be said – but this was and always had been a collaborative business and, looking back at the culture at ABN AMRO, it really contrasted with the widely-held perception of banking. A Dutch-led organisation, it was very collegiate in the way it operated and people were driven by making the right decisions. My time at ABN gave me great experience of working for a global business and delivering HR practices through a matrix model. But this was an era of takeovers and soon there was rumour that one was on the cards. There were a number of potential suitors on the table and then RBS came in as the front runner and subsequently acquired the business.

Understandably, there was a good deal of disruption and, from an HR perspective, it was all hands to the pump. It was hugely challenging to keep a semblance of calm, as these two businesses started to bump and collide and the initial task was to keep people engaged and focused on business continuity. It’s difficult trying to calm nerves when personally you are considering what’s right for you and your career. But HR has to have this stoic persona, which is not quite like the band on the Titanic, but certainly about showing a calm complexion in the face of uncertainty. You have to take all experience and learning as a positive, even though it doesn’t always feel like that at the time and so experiencing M&A from the acquired side, taught me a lot about how we respond in stress and uncertainty. I’ve worked on acquisitions on both sides and it has really helped to understand. I stayed on with ABN to support the transition team for a short period of time, before I moved on and went to BP. It was definitely the right time to go.

The new role at BP was still financial services based, even with an energy company – as I was supporting the European Gas and LNG trading business – so it had a similar environment and focus, but was hugely different from a culture perspective. While I was there, the company suffered periods where the brand was making headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t a great time for the business and had a big impact within the organisation because, despite its size, this was a traditional firm run by people, some of whom had dedicated their entire working lives to the business. I joined at a time where the HR function itself was going through a big transformation – with the onus on business partnering – and this was my initial main focus. One of the great things about HR is you can parachute into any situation and be reasonably confident that, at the end of the day, you’re dealing with people.

The amount of people and the diversity is compelling and I enjoy working on a global scale. What you deliver in HR is never prescriptive, it has to be balanced and adapted for some incredibly diverse settings, from city hubs to the most remote areas on the planet. I reflect that, during the pandemic, we’ve been supporting people that we have not met and that’s similar to when you are working on a global basis. Connecting with people and delivering support is all about empathy and understanding of different circumstances – balanced against the necessity to drive massive global HR agendas – it is very much a mindset that you have to adopt and become accustomed to. For example, managing talent on trading floors is clearly going to be different from managing talent on oil rigs, but you need to have defining principles of how you deliver HR.

I made the decision to leave, so that I could spend more time with my family. During this career break, I was often being asked to advise businesses on HR issues and it soon became clear that I could turn this into a business. So, I set up an HR consultancy company, focusing on organisations that were big enough to have people issues, but not big enough to have fully-pledged HR functions. I soon discovered there was plenty of work out there and that working for myself provided the flexibility I needed and I could pick and choose my clients. As it transpired, they were as far away from financial services as you can go and I found myself on factory floors, in charities and the public sector. A range of new experiences and much more direct, as I was often coming in when issues had reached boiling point. It brought me back to managing people on a more individual level and required me to deploy HR in different ways. When you face people in stress situations and listen, you are at the crux of what pure HR is all about, people matters. Many of your readers will be with large corporations and I would urge them at some point to go back to grassroots level, just to re-live those core people experiences. Not only was setting up the consultancy ideal for my situation at the time, it truly added extra dimensions to my skillset, as I was touching on a myriad of issues, from gender pay gap analysis through to advising on ER issues and it was less about grand scale strategic planning and more about immediate, localised action. I also became an external investigator for Eversheds and so, all in all, this was a richly diverse experience and full of personal learning and development. It was through this work that I came into contact with Starling Bank.

I started work with Starling on a consultancy basis and, at the time, there were around 300 people in the business. There was a small HR function in place, but the business was rapidly growing and they needed more support, so I came in to help out with a couple of projects and ended up staying. To answer your question, what compelled me, Starling was started up, partly as a challenge to the banking market at large. Our founder and CEO, Anne Boden, is rare in the cut-and-thrust of banking and is one of the significant elements that makes this a different organisation to the norm. Anne balances entrepreneurial spirit and hands-on leadership and she founded Starling to rival other banks, to do things better, quicker and easier. Also, with recent history in mind, to be more honest with customers and transparent about actions and intentions and no ambiguity. It has been an enormous challenge for Anne and I think it has been her determination and enthusiasm to beat the odds that has drawn really great people to Starling. From the beginning, Anne struggled to gain the funding she needed and there was definitely an attitude of “not taking a woman seriously”, in what is a traditionally male-dominated sector, although not so much today, which is encouraging. Now we’re in a really good place and although the company has grown significantly, that personal touch still remains. So that’s the background of how Starling began and seven and a half years on, the fledgling grows stronger.

From first sight when I was consulting, to this day, the energy was all about growth and, during my tenure, we have increased our employee count five-fold. We’re now about 1,600 people and growing and so recruitment has been a significant part of our work in the people team. I came in at the time where we were starting to branch out of London, opening offices in; Cardiff, Southampton and Dublin, so a multisite organisation rapidly forming out of one floor in a London office block. That has posed a number of challenges for delivering a people agenda in, not just finding the right people to fill those offices, but also to manage them and make sure that the culture and values that make Starling different are diffused throughout. Growth at this pace is challenging with no respite or time to take stock before the next big step forward. So, the speed of activity has stretched a relatively small people function. When you hold a caring and respectful culture as being what defines the company, one bad customer or employee experience stands out as a stark challenge to a statement of intent. The other consideration is that we have a light managerial style and we don’t have huge amounts of bureaucracy – we need to move fast but safely, within a heavily regulated environment – with our values so visibly nailed to the mast.

As an organisation, it feels less like a bank and more like a tech company and that’s exactly what we say to people when we’re interviewing. We tell them to expect to come into a fast-paced environment – they nod in a “yes I’m prepared for that” confident way – and later, when we catch up with them, they invariably say, “you weren’t kidding!” It’s light years away from the traditional bank setting and it’s incredibly innovative and creative, because our tech teams are building the technology infrastructure out as we grow and develop. But the innovation involves everybody and the sharing of knowledge and openness means that customer-facing colleagues are informing and contributing to the creativity. In fact, despite a hugely competitive skills market, I’m convinced that our ability to attract exceptional people is the dynamic of positive feedback that radiates out beyond the business and into the wider world. When people hear about the outstanding innovation in a business, it is a critical calling card, along with the culture and values. Conversely, when people are frustrated by legacy issues and intransient leaders, that type of negativity is a red flag, particularly in the world of digital talent.

You have to genuinely want to make those changes and if we consider gender imbalance, historically banks have been male-dominated, especially in leadership and boardrooms. Thankfully, that is moving in the right direction, but nobody can stand back and admire their handiwork yet. As I’ve previously said, with a woman founder who experienced inequality, DEI is a big driver. It is just a fundamental part of what we do. We hire a lot of women, who then hire a lot more women and 40 percent of our board are women. We don’t have a problem attracting women to the organisation, because of the many role-models across the business. We’ve recently launched a returners programme aimed at people who have been out of the workforce for a period of time. This is something that is particularly important to me as I appreciate what it’s like to return to work after a break. I’m really hoping this will encourage more women into Starling. Similarly, we have programmes that support women in tech programmes, to broaden our diversity in that area. We do well in attracting women, but we’re always looking for more and we’re very mindful that the DEI dynamics are way more than gender balance and we are on a very determined journey, which will continue to form why we differentiate in the sector.

Without doubt, the more that students from a young age can see people from the world of work that they can identify with and learn what great and exciting careers they are having, the greater chance of bringing those legacy conventions down. I think going in at grassroots level is so important. From a business perspective, we’re working with Loughborough University to look at how boys and girls under ten manage money, what they hear at home and what schools teach someone about managing money. So, we’re using our expertise to be closer to schools and no doubt, every organisation in every sector has more work to do. We’re mindful that our strong female role modelling attracts more women into Starling than is the norm across the sector and so we have to be pragmatic and determined to address the entire DEI objective. For example, in supporting our black colleagues, we introduced a reciprocal mentoring programme as part of our action under the If Not Now, When? campaign. Pairing a black colleague with senior members of the company has fuelled positive debate and conversations. This is the direction of travel that our people expect and demand. I don’t want the next generation having to have the same conversations as we are having now, surrounding the need to keep the diversity issue top of the agenda, it needs to be organic. That’s why making these connections with young people in education and also through our values and actions in society, is so important.

I think it has been an experience that has informed us all, especially those that work HR. I’m extremely grateful that, over the 18 months we’ve been able to continue operating and continuing to grow the business, because so many companies were not able to. Being a tech firm, the rapid rollout to remote working was pretty smooth and we made sure that everyone was communicating across all our sites. Anne gave broadcasts three times a week, to keep people informed and answer any questions. When things were bleak in lockdown, we ran a campaign called Never Home Alone which included information about what welfare support was available, how colleagues could engage with the people team and how we could help. We even introduced fun and informative elements beyond business such as recipes and cooking tips, which have proved very popular and have definitely helped keep people together. The next issue is how we manage the transition into hybrid working, which is both a challenge and a fantastic opportunity to make positive improvements to how we all work in the future. For me, the old way didn’t work for everyone, but that doesn’t mean hybrid working is some kind of panacea to an age-old problem. We need to calibrate a balance of flexibility with functionality and it has to be comprehensive, inclusive and sustainable. All of this is predicated on mutual trust, we have to treat people like adults and have a wholeheartedly pragmatic approach that works symbiotically with people’s lives. This will be a huge change to, not only how we operate, but mindsets.

It’s very difficult to say, I really hope not because, as I said, the old way did not work for everyone and that caused exclusion and inequality. As leaders today, we have a massive obligation and duty to make this happen. I believe we can achieve if we focus on the positives and advantages, such as the huge talent pool that is open to us through the hybrid model – and find solutions to negativity and the inevitable problems and obstacles along the journey. All along the way, we have to keep aware and encourage feedback; listening at all times will be absolutely fundamental to outcome.

We are a bank and we’re a regulated company and that means we have to continue to build our business sensibly and safely. With those parameters in mind, we are committed to providing and supporting our workforce in an organisational framework that works for our people. That presents opportunity and advantage, but also very considerable challenges. We cannot rush anything we do or take anything for granted, it is safety first as we forge ahead. From an HR perspective, we have to play to our advantages. As a new company, we don’t have legacy issues and so we can innovate with more freedom and alacrity than most and we can adjust and tweak as we go as challenges and obstacles present. For us, change has always been constant and we are always changing our processes – and the way we do things – it’s just the way that we work and that’s why we took the pandemic pretty much in our stride. Again, when I’ve looked across at businesses in hard hit sectors, I feel that we’ve been incredibly fortunate that we’ve managed to keep progressing, growing and have stayed positive. For sure, there were hard times, but I think it takes a crisis to really test people and businesses, anyone can manage in good times.

We still have huge growth plans and that inevitably means that our People team will be at the forefront of that. Right now, my mind is on improving and building on our talent and learning offering. Over the last 12 months the People team has moved to a model where we have centers of expertise and we’ve real experts currently focused on those elements. We have continued to hire really strong talent throughout the pandemic and I want to be able to make sure that we retain that talent and we make the best use of capabilities, by providing them with the development that they need. We’re very good at spotting talent and we’re very good at supporting people to reach their aspirations. We hire people from a wide variety of backgrounds and we have some unusual tactics. For example in customer service, we tend to hire from customer focussed industries such as hospitality or retail, because they can bring that all-important customer-centric attitude and we can develop and train them. We have some really talented people here with some interesting backgrounds and experiences that we can develop and that is the strategy that we will continue.

I’m really glad that I’ve always been in roles that have been challenging and have stretched me, which has made me resilient and resourceful. I believe that equal to your own efforts, it comes down to the people that you are working with, as well as the culture of the organisations that you become a part of. I always say when people join Starling, that you make a decision to join – not purely based on the job itself – but as a commitment to be respectful of the culture and values that guide us and that has to ring true with you personally. Reflecting back over my career, I can see I was happiest when being tested and stretched, but without feeling unsafe and so one of my main objectives is to provide that culture of a balance of safety and self-responsibility. I also see the pandemic as an opportunity to really innovate and to be mindful that many of the workplace conventions from the past, will simply not survive in the new world of work. With many lessons learned, it could be a truly exciting future.

Watch our video interview with Susanna as she talks more about the challenges that Covid presented for the bank and their future strategy.

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