Lorna Stevens - Finance

• What inspires you?
• What attracted you to Barclays?
• Why did you choose to join Finance?
• What have you been doing since you joined?
• What do you enjoy the most about your job?
• Can you outline any interesting projects you've been involved with?
• What qualities do you need to succeed at Barclays?
• What qualities do you need to succeed in Finance?
• Who at work inspires you and why?

Transcript

What inspires you?
I’ve chosen to draw what I‘m drawing now because I really like a challenge, my big thing is try to a big challenge every year. Last year I chose a Marathon, I’ve not quite decided this year’s yet. It also represents two people who I think are amazing people. The first is Jane Thomson, who sadly died last year, all the stuff she done to raise money for charities and also Paula Radcliffe, who I think is really strong and dedicated and committed and that’s why I chosen to draw someone running.

What attracted you to Barclays?
When I was doing all my job applications I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and I knew I'd done law at university but I knew that I definitely didn't want to do that as a career. And my Dad's an accountant and he sort of talked me into the idea, so when I decided that's what I wanted to do, Barclays offered the best package to support you study wise, with regards to the fact they pay for everything, they pay for your revision courses and they're really supportive on a day-to-day basis when you have exams coming up. I also speak two languages so I wanted to go to somewhere that had an international presence and there was the potential to move around. And because we do four nine-month placements, there is the potential to spend time abroad, which really appealed to me. And it's got a really good reputation. I'd heard of it, it was really mainstream, so it sort of suited on a lot of levels, so I thought I would apply. And then my recruitment process, of all the ones I went through, was the friendliest and the most warm and I met the nicest people. That makes a big difference when you're deciding where you want to end up.

Why did you choose to join Finance?
I'm quite strong mathematically, I like stuff that's logical and makes sense and you can get to an end result. So it suited me from that point of view. I think, longer term, I would see myself in a much more general management role than being a finance director. But I think it's the one area of the business world that people don't get and people don't understand so I think that if you start in finance to move elsewhere you have a head start almost, rather than starting in quite a generic business area that you don't need specific training for. You're very heavily reliant on finance to get the financial awareness that you need to have a successful business.

What have you been doing since you joined?
Since I joined Barclaycard Business I've been the Finance Business Partner for the Chief Operations Office, which covers all the contact centres. It covers stuff like lost and stolen cards and covers things like broken terminals, so its my job to concentrate much more on customer services which is the contact centres up in Liverpool and in Teesside. And my main responsibility is explaining to them whether they've stayed within budget, helping them understand the forecasting process, what sanctioned spend they have, what they can't spend, increasing their financial awareness because the more understanding they have the more inclined they will be to stay within their budget. So that's my main remit.

What do you enjoy the most about your role?
I really enjoy dealing with non-financial people - that really appeals to me. I like trying to explain something that's really quite obscure to people that don't really have an interest in it, but it is of fundamental importance to them so I like trying to help them understand why they ought to care a bit more. I like that my job's a really good mix of two weeks of routine month end reporting type stuff and two weeks of adhoc queries. And that's a really nice balance to have, so for two weeks I know exactly what I've got to do and when I've got to do it, then there's two weeks when I can have anything land in my inbox that I have to deal with, so that's a good combination.

What interesting projects have you been involved with?
At the moment I'm doing a really interesting project to do with producing non-financial metrics, linked into the financials instead of just looking at the straightforward spend against what you're allowed to spend. It's sort of tying that in with productivity measures, so instead of saying that the contact centres spent £100,000 last month, it's saying they spent £100,000 but 98% of their calls were satisfied at first time resolution, which is a much more valuable metric to report on, because there's no point in staying within budget if you've had a bit of a disaster. My previous placement I was involved in a project to do with all the phone charges incurred by the whole of the Barclaycard cluster, and it was my job to sort out blackberries and telephones, to check they were being paid for by the right business area, so to check they were going to the right cost centre; that people hadn't left the company and we were still paying for them; that people hadn't gone to a different part of the group, which was a massive project. There were about 6,000 telephones and 3,000 blackberries to co-ordinate, but it ended up being a massive cost saving and it was really good for me to meet people around the cluster and to get a bit more exposure, because in your first year, year and a half at a company, you don't get that, especially one of this size.

What qualities do you need to succeed at Barclays?
I think you probably have to be quite a determined individual, it's a very very popular recruiter. It's packaged as second to none when it comes to graduate recruitment so I think you have to know you want to do and I think you have to be determined to get there whatever way you can. And you have to put the effort in and you have to be determined to do your job well, otherwise someone can fill your shoes in a second. You have to work well in a team. There's a really really strong team environment and team ethic, across the whole group and especially Barclaycard at the moment, so you really really need to pull together and support the rest of your team so you can all get to your goal collectively.

What qualities do you need to succeed in Finance?
You have to be a people person, you have to get on well with people. More specific to my actual job you can't be patronising to people that don't know stuff about finance, because I deal with a lot more senior people than I am and to assume that because they don't understand what I do means that they don't understand anything would just be fatal because they know a lot more about the corporate world and the commercial world than I do. I just have more niche knowledge so you have to be prepared to get on with that, and you need to have the confidence to deal with these people. The first thing I struggled with when coming here was meeting with board members and telling them that they were wrong about something. Which is a scary thing to do, in your first year out of university. But they would rather you do that. And the same sort of fundamental qualities that you'd expect of anyone, that you want to get far in business; to put the effort in; to be quite ambitious; to be driven.

Who inspires you at work and why?
There's probably been two people that I've found really inspirational. The first person I ever worked with when I got here. I just love him to pieces, I just think he's a brilliant man. He's one of the nicest, most humble people you'll ever meet, but is so ferociously talented and he deals with the CIO costs for the whole of Barclaycard which is not an easy job. And he has to deal with a lot of economic transfers between us and other parts of the business and it's never easy to get people to take costs they don't want. He always makes time for you - I've kept in touch with him and he's been so supportive even though I've left that role. He was just so patient and understanding with my complete lack of awareness about anything to do with anything remotely IT when I first started. The second person is my current boss's boss, who is just one of the busiest people in the company and always has been, yet always makes time for you. He does tend to catch you at about quarter past 5 when you're about to leave. But he always makes sure that every day he's spent time with everyone in his team to check you're alright, to check what's going on. He's really really good at believing in you and giving you the opportunities to stand in front of board and explain things to people much more senior, to get the exposure and I think that's really important, because he automatically has my support in anything he wants to do and I automatically have him in a kind of mentor type role and I know I would get an honest response from him for anything I want to do.