Coutts Woman

Networking lunch charts women’s progress

When Coutts hosted a lunch last month to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Warwick Business School, (WBS), of Warwick University, it was also celebrating the role of women in business. Because statistics from the school showed that since 1999, 3,000 women had graduated from the WBS.

It was appropriate that Coutts was the setting as Sarah Deaves, chief executive of the bank, is a WBS alumni having completed her MBA there. A panel of women including Sarah, BUPA chief executive, Val Gooding, associate dean of the WBS, Jenny Hocking, Baroness Julia Neuberger, and Baroness Valerie Amos, presented their views on the changing role of women in their particular industry. Female leaders from both business and government joined them to also share their views.

Ben Plummer, head of the business school, welcomed the guests and commented, “I’m delighted to see such an expediential growth of women in the university.”  Sarah started the proceedings with a short history of her career. As the first female executive at Coutts and the first CEO, she said the bank had moved a long way from the days when women were not even allowed in the banking hall. She commented, “When I worked at the National Provincial bank women had the wonderful opportunity to be typists.” Now, she said, “Women are doing wonderful things in investment banking and their ability and intellect is being allowed to shine through.” Most importantly she stressed that in her opinion, “A feature of many successful women is in finding new ways of doing things.” In other words, recognising that there are differences between men and women, and not trying to replicate the role of men, but bringing different strengths to the working environment.

“Women are doing wonderful things in investment banking and their ability and intellect is being allowed to shine through.”

Val Gooding said the role of women had changed enormously since the 1970’s when she was a British Airways reservations manager.  Answering her own question as to why more women don’t occupy senior roles she said, “Maybe it’s still about self-confidence, and self belief issues.” She believes it’s important, “to make corporate life more appealing to women.” And as CEO of BUPA she has introduced flexible working hours and cash incentives for women returning to work following maternity leave.

There seemed to be a consensus amongst the group that women in general needed, as Baroness Amos said, “To keep the pressure on and to make sure progress is maintained.” She said, “It’s important to be constantly challenging ourselves to move out of our comfort zone.” And she emphasised the importance of, “demonstrating confidence and encouraging women to think outside the box.”  The discussion kept returning to self-belief and Baroness Neuberger said, “You need to tough it out. “ She said, “We should be looking at the incredible pressures around high-flying women and remember most of us wouldn’t function if it wasn’t for other women working for us – often exploited and underpaid”.

The strong message coming out of the lunch was that despite more work needed for women to achieve their full potential, things were improving. As Sarah Deaves commented, “The question is, how do we make corporate life more appealing to women?”

The Panel

Sarah Deaves – chief executive, Coutts & Co. Previously she was managing director, Own Brand Business, looking after Lombard Direct and Directline Financial Services. She's an Oxford graduate and has an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Val Gooding – chief executive, BUPA. Val is a non-executive director of Compass Group plc, and Standard Chartered Bank plc. She’s a member of the council of Warwick University, co-chair of the advisory board of the Warwick Business School, trustee of the British Museum and non-executive director of the Lawn Tennis Association. She has been awarded a CBE for services to business.

Jenny Hocking – associate dean at Warwick University’s Business School and has been with the school since 1978.  She has an MBE for services to higher education.

Baroness Julia Neuberger – a social reformer, rabbi and member of the House of Lords. She was previously a chair of Camden and Islington Community Health Services and chief executive of the Kings Fund. She is a Cambridge graduate.

Baroness Valerie Amos – leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. Previously she was a government whip, chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission and co-founder of Amos Fraser Bernard, working as an adviser to the South African government. She’s a graduate of the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham and pursued doctoral research at East Anglia.