Invest in the future

From the age of 16 I knew I wanted to work in marketing, but wasn’t sure in which industry. My first role at Lloyds TSB was a great place to start and I had a fabulous manager who taught me the basics of marketing and campaign management. I then moved over to a large insurance company for a promotion.

By the time I left, due to being made redundant, I was head of UK marketing. After taking a career break in 2016 to have my daughter, I returned to work and to a different area of the financial services industry.

I am now head of marketing at Holloway Friendly, a specialist income protection provider. During my years I have had many great opportunities but also some tough challenges. I have experienced some inequalities due to being a woman, had to deal with discrimination and even a few wandering hands in the early days, but as I grew wiser and more experienced I became more assertive.

Now I do my best to ensure I cast a positive shadow and have created a personal style which is approachable and professional—fun yet tenacious. I believe in giving back, and I have mentored other women, who are usually younger, throughout my career as I hope that they can learn from my experiences and mistakes, and I can inspire them to go on and be the best they can be.

Driving change
Throughout my career I have worked with incredible people who have given me invaluable advice, support and a shoulder to cry on when needed. I have also worked with some challenging people who I have learnt from in a different way. I vowed not to treat people in the same manner—treat people the way you want to be treated has always been my personal motto.

I have spent the majority of my career working within the various entities of a large insurance company and seen many restructures, product launches and rebrands. I have encountered many personal and professional challenges and rejections, and went from witnessing bullying in the workplace—which meant having to blow the whistle—to seeing myself and my female colleagues drive though positive change within our companies and also the wider financial services industry.

There were far more female senior managers and executives when I left the large insurer than there were when I started and, at my current company, we have more women on our senior leadership team than men. The majority of our sales team are also women.

This is so encouraging to see and I feel that, in a small way, I have helped pave the way for the next generation of female leaders.

I see change, more diversity and more flexibility on the horizon. I see technology changing how we work and interact with each other and I also think we, as a financial services industry, will start to focus on the ‘how’ not the ‘what if’.

Everything we do will be highly measured due to the internet of things and as an industry we need to think about how we will use and harness this data and the new technology that will become available.

I think we will look to build more inclusive propositions which focus on letting people live the life they want, in the way they want to live it. We won’t build ‘products’ as such, but inclusive propositions which will offer more than just singular insurance policies with some value-added services stapled on to the side.

Flexibility
The industry is definitely more diverse now. When I used to go to industry conferences and events there was rarely more than a handful of women in the audience and almost no female speakers on the agenda. You never had to queue for the female toilets at a financial services event!

As an industry we are starting to think about how to make the workplace more inclusive and accessible. We have seen an increase in ‘return to work’ programmes, more agile and flexible working, as well as people challenging the norm and asking questions, such as ‘why do I have to work these hours, in a set location?’.

These changes are enabling more women to return to work after having a career break, whether that’s been to have a child, to look after an elderly or sick family member or perhaps to re-train so they can change careers.

We can still do more to make the industry more diverse and I call on all senior executives, regardless of gender, to think about how they can invest in the leaders of the future.

Georgia d’Esterre is head of marketing at Holloway Friendly.  www.holloway.co.uk