Natapong Kiitipadungkul - Barclaycard

What attracted you to Barclays?
Obviously, you know, Barclays is such a household name, it’s such a big company, so I think just the fact that it has such a global reputation, it’s really drawn me into applying. But more importantly I think it’s about what it wants to become - it wants to become the best financial institution in the world. I really admire that ambition, and I really want to be part of it and so there’s no second thought about it really.

Why did you choose to join Barclaycard?
I’m very interested in the consumer finance industry. I think it’s an extremely buoyant industry. Things are extremely competitive in the UK, especially in terms of the credit card market; there are a lot of players out there, new and old players.

They are all coming up with new strategy, best in class strategy and so on, so I think as a graduate if you want to come in and learn and be the best at what you are, this will be a perfect environment for me to excel given my capabilities.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?
My role heavily involves talking to a lot of people from different departments. So I think that the fact that you are always engaged in very interesting conversation is very good.

You’re constantly learning about new things from different people, and you have all this input from various sources and you can actually try and derive your own best solution, doing the right work for your manager and so on. The second thing is more to do with the numbers.

We handle a lot of figures from different sources, but the thing is you have to really look into the figures and try to come up with a story of what that is trying to represent. And I find that really interesting and challenging.

Can you outline any interesting projects you have been involved with?
My first project was the re-pricing project. That is basically all about re-pricing our particular product. We have to re-price our product every now and then, because if there are changes in the macro-economic factors, then of course everything has to change in terms of the customer behaviour, and of course our behaviour as well.

Essentially this project is all about studying how our customers would react should we change the price, and we use a lot of models for that - mathematical models. We actually predict what would happen to a particular customer should they be charged at a different rate, like in terms of APR, so we’re trying to keep both parties happy, i.e. our self and of course the customer.

It is extremely analytical as well and this is the project that I really enjoy because you have to gather so much information from different sources, working across different teams, as I say it really brings the best out of you.

Why join Barclaycard?
This is the sort of career that will bring about the ultimate self-fulfilment purely because every day you are required to bring the best out of you and I really enjoy that.

Who at work inspires you?
Well there are two people at work that really inspire me and they are both the line managers of our department. What is great about them is they can bring about their own expertise and their own character to really motivate everybody in the team and make sure that we all move forward as a team. And that’s what I want to do one day, when I will hopefully be able to lead a team at Barclays. In a sense that my presence can actually motivate others as well and have great influence on them, in a sense that the whole team can actually move forward, and that the value of the performance is greater than the sum of its parts. I think that is how success should be measured in an organisation.