This year, Mortgage Solutions has spoken to women across the financial services sector to mark International Women’s Week (3-9 March), which includes International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8 March.
The theme of this year’s campaign is Accelerate Action, meaning as well as celebrating the achievements of women and advocating for progress with issues that affect women, there is also a focus on how to speed up the rate of change and work towards a more inclusive, equal society.
We spoke with Charlotte Grimshaw, head of intermediaries at Suffolk Building Society, to hear her views.
Who are you and where do you work?
I’m Charlotte Grimshaw, head of intermediaries at Suffolk Building Society.
In a nutshell, I love cooking (and eating it), good wine, and the outdoors. I’m not very good at staying still or relaxing, which carries over into my corporate life too. I weirdly love change and I’m always very optimistic about it.
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How long have you been working in the sector?
I’ve been in the mortgage and building society sector for the past 13 years.
I’m ‘building societies’ through and through; it’s the culture, the ability to make a change and have an impact. It’s also being able to make a difference to customers who don’t fit with the mainstream lending proposition that has kept me here.
Now I’m accustomed to it, I don’t think I’d get the same job satisfaction from doing anything else.
Have you always worked in financial services?
This wasn’t my original career path. I’ve always had a job, though, while at school, sixth form and through university: waitress, bar person, insurance call centre, printing factory, cleaner and community officer for a housing association. I’m independent and thoroughly enjoy working (as strange as that sounds).
I studied geography at university, with the aim of being a teacher, but fell into the building society and mortgage sector and I’ve been here ever since. I love our industry.
When did you realise financial services would be a career for you?
Pretty quickly, I think, although looking back I didn’t realise it at the time. I just never left and have never been tempted to progress the teaching idea.
I love that we help customers buy a home, and the fact that it’s our manual underwriting that gets these cases over the line is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Building lasting relationships with brokers and peers, finding solutions and adapting to a changing landscape in the mortgage market – what’s not to love?
I mean, no days are ever the same – it’s certainly not monotonous. Rarely does a week go exactly to plan – there’s always something. It keeps it fresh and keeps me on my toes.
We’re providing a solution – we’re helping people achieve what they want to achieve (a home, investment property, or self-build) – we see it all.
It’s the fast-paced environment and the people. As an industry we’re a supportive yet competitive bunch. We’re a big industry, but I’d say also very welcoming.
Do you feel like you worked harder than your male counterparts to get where you are?
I’ve never really noticed or compared myself in this way before. I’ve just ‘cracked on’ (to use a Northern phrase) and done my thing.
I am straight talking and like to make sure there is progress (talk about it, but then do it). That’s what’s helped me accelerate to head of intermediaries at the age of 30, when I moved to Suffolk Building Society.
I am driven and I’ve always pushed myself outside of my comfort zone. I moved from the North West to the home counties on my own for a business development manager (BDM) job. It was either going to go terribly well, or terribly badly.
I wouldn’t say I work harder; no one truly sees the blood, sweat and tears that their colleagues put in, nor the family work they do when they get home. I’ve certainly taken chances on new opportunities and it’s worked out well.
In what ways do you try to support women already in the sector or those wanting to join?
I support everyone in my team equally. I think it’s about ability, attitude and drive as opposed to qualifications and, to some extent, experience, depending on the role.
Someone took a chance on me because they could see my drive and passion, so they offered me a BDM role. At the time, every single BDM role specified two years of road experience, which I just didn’t have. Looking back, they took a huge gamble. But I was the energetic ‘Duracell bunny’, I guess, who wouldn’t give up.
I look to pay that forward at every opportunity I get. I think when you have a strong team, as we do here at Suffolk Building Society, you should look to be as diverse as possible. Gender is a big contributing factor.
The dynamism and energy in our team meetings are no doubt due to our diversity. Some of the solutions and improvements that are bounced around are from very different angles/experiences and, quite honestly, just different perspectives.
The theme of IWD this year is ‘Accelerate Action’, highlighting that there is still a long way to go until we reach genuine gender parity. Do you feel like the financial services sector is progressing at a satisfactory pace?
We’re a long way from the early 70s, when lenders could legally discriminate against women who tried to take out mortgages in their own names. Thankfully, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974) swept that aside.
We’re progressing, and we’re progressing well. But, as with anything, you can always do more.
When I joined the industry, I didn’t come across many female BDMs – it was majority male. But looking around at events now, not only are there many female BDMs representing our amazing lenders, but it also feels like there are a lot more female brokers in the marketplace too.
What more can be done?
There are two ways I think this could be achieved. The first is for employers to offer equal parental leave. We need to normalise fathers having more than a fortnight off. Secondly, it would be great to encourage fathers to take this leave. Once men and women are viewed as taking equal responsibility for childcare, then we’ll really level the playing field and achieve true equity.
We need to keep enabling and encouraging women to be able to balance home and work if we want to attract phenomenal women into the industry. The more women we can bring in, the more influence they’ll have, and the more progression.
Flexible working, which we’ve seen since Covid really, and the introduction of some prominent female brokerages in the marketplace over the last few years has made a huge difference. I think lenders have caught on quickly and are realising it’s the output and not the hours you’re sat at your desk. It’s clear that you can’t be in two places at once. And that’s where flexibility is so important. For example, if I’m away at a work event in the evening, I’m missing ‘bath and bed’. If I want to make the school summer BBQ, I’m missing an internal meeting or an external event. This flexibility has driven an increase in women in the financial sector – we’ve pretty much pushed it forward and that’s phenomenal.
When it comes to gender equality, where do you think financial services has done well?
Culturally, and I appreciate I can only speak largely for the building society sector, everyone here wants to work on gender equality. This isn’t a tickbox exercise.
It’s been 10 years since McKinsey’s first Diversity Matters report, which gave us hard data showing that companies that performed better for gender diversity performed better financially, too.
It’s not only the right thing to do, but there are also benefits for lenders and customers from achieving gender equality. That’s why I think we’ll continue to see progress.
