A Good Time to be a Girl

Two other critical factors helped me to progress so far and so quickly at Newton. I was working for a company where results were what mattered, and my husband Richard and I had developed a real partnership to care and provide for our family. Together with my newfound career awareness, this was a powerful combination, but by no means complex or mysterious.

The first company I had worked for was very traditional at the time, like most long-established City of London institutions. Founded in 1804 it was built on literally centuries-old practices that revolved around how men habitually liked to work. The atmosphere was ‘clubby’. There was a daily reminder of the hierarchy: each afternoon, a uniformed butler wheeled a trolley round the floor and served tea and biscuits to those of associate director or higher rank. Members of the asset allocation committee, the most senior group of investors, had typically served twenty years or more at the company. We would be asked to submit papers from time to time but weren’t invited to participate in their meetings. The structure was rigid and junior staff needed to fit in if they were to progress. While the New York office had its own more energetic and youthful culture, the London headquarters was the epicentre of power.

In contrast, there was a friendly, collegiate atmosphere at Newton. The very first week I joined, people asked for my opinion. If anyone had anything worthwhile to contribute, they would have the opportunity. The company didn’t really have a formal structure, more a fluid process built around the goal of delivering strong investment performance, with no one really paying much attention to status or tenure. My job interview with Stewart was not unusual; he took a great interest in hiring anyone who was going to be part of the investment team, however lowly. He made a point of frequently emphasising that the firm was a meritocracy and encouraged me to be my own character, which helped me to grow in confidence. I became increasingly bold in my investment views, but also more comfortable in being fully myself. I dressed more distinctively, and colleagues began to ask me to represent the firm to clients or at conferences. As expectations increased, even though I had inevitable moments of self-doubt, I rose to meet the next level of challenge. Partly, this was due to necessity: in this early phase of my time at Newton, Richard was made redundant and although he found another job in due course, I was spurred on by the responsibility of providing for our family. Yet persevering didn’t feel like an uphill struggle.

The qualities of the firm that enabled me to thrive weren’t the result of any diversity initiative but intrinsic to its everyday culture.

When I eventually left Newton after more than twenty years, my very first consideration when weighing up future opportunities was corporate culture. Did a potential employer welcome diverse opinions and encourage staff to express views that might differ from the consensus (or the boss); was there evidence of a meritocracy? I quickly turned down even interesting-sounding roles if it was also clear that the firm was rigidly command-and-control. By now I knew that a truly inclusive culture was essential if I was going to be able to really contribute, to be successful and happy. My new firm, Legal and General, didn’t just tick theoretical boxes; I had worked with enough people there (both senior and less so) on a variety of industry-wide projects to know we were a good fit.

Corporate culture has been in the spotlight since the 2008 financial crisis, with a number of scandals showing how poor behaviours can have disastrous consequences, destroying reputations and share prices. Culture, the social and psychological character of a firm, can seem a nebulous concept and it can be difficult to judge from the outside, especially since most mid-sized and large companies now make all the right statements about diversity and inclusion. The question is whether these statements are embedded in day-to-day behaviours.

A short while ago a woman approached me in the gym, seeking my advice. She was struggling to live up to what she felt was expected at the investment firm where she worked. I know the chief executive quite well and believe that he really wants women to thrive at the company. A few years ago he called me to ask how to attract more female graduates (at the time only10% of their applicants were women). He has been genuinely supportive of broader efforts to improve diversity in the currently very white, very middle-class and male-dominated fund management industry. Yet the woman’s experience was discouraging; the mother of two young children, she had been assured at the interviews that her role did not involve much travel. In fact, soon after joining she had been sent on four long-haul trips in quick succession. Another trip was looming the following week. The travel was taking its toll on both her family and her day-to-day work: worried that she was falling behind, she had gone into the office at the weekend to catch up, only to find many colleagues there. The family-friendly talk had proved just that.

I advised her to talk to her manager, to calmly explain that she was keen to work hard but the current situation was unsustainable – and to give specific examples. My suspicion was that no one had intentionally misled her, that they simply hadn’t joined the dots between what had been said and what was transpiring in practice (not an excuse, but often the reality). She may well have said yes to the first trip thinking it was a one-off, made a success of it and then been an obvious choice for further travel, with the interview fading from everyone’s consciousness except her own. The likelihood was that her manager would much rather adapt than see her resign.

A lack of consistency between what is said and what is done is a common but significant problem. It breeds disillusionment and distrust. Leadership teams are often very keen, almost desperate to see a better gender mix and frustrated by a lack of progress but completely oblivious to situations like my gym companion’s. If we don’t speak up – not belligerently or militantly, but to point out the inconsistencies – the gap in their understanding will persist. Of course, some jobs necessitate travel and episodes of working round-the-clock, but constant pressure should not be a role requirement: it certainly does not bring out the best in anyone, man or woman, and is unsustainable.

This example highlights a widespread problem: diversity and inclusion are usually treated as enhancements, not as core to business success. There are still many challenges to the idea that diversity does enhance results, and we will examine the evidence later, but for now let’s explore why there is such a prevalent gap between what is said by CEOs and what happens in practice.

Dame Fiona Woolf hosted a diversity conference at the Mansion House when she was Lord Mayor of the City of London in 2015 (only the second female Lord Mayor in 800 years). I was keen to speak at this particular conference because the target audience was middle managers, often thought to be the sticking point when it comes to making progress towards more inclusive workplace cultures. After my presentation one gentleman raised his hand. How, he wanted to know, did we fit diversity and inclusion into our already busy work schedules? He wondered if I recommended allocating specific time to the issue, say, an hour a week? He couldn’t see that this was like suggesting we allocate a time to say, being nice.

That may sound like an outlier but this lack of understanding is not uncommon. One of the reasons why we have made relatively slow progress is our tendency to separate ‘diversity and inclusion’ efforts into a distinct area. Instead, they should be inseparable aspects of culture. Attitudes and behaviours are hard to change, but we can shake them up by making the issue central, as part of the everyday.

If you run a business, you may think you are already approaching diversity in this integrated, seamless way. One idea to test that out: are jobs at your company flexible by default or do staff need to request permission to work in a flexible or agile way? In 2015, PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Australia took what might seem a radical step, to make all its 6,000 roles flexible, giving employees the freedom to choose their own working hours. Staff might work part-time, job-share, vary their work hours or work remotely. They didn’t need to make their case: instead, their manager was responsible for piecing together different working practices to ensure that the team was effective. For most people, it wasn’t a question of working either more or fewer hours, just differently. Significantly, the motivation behind PwC’s move was to attract high calibre talent to the firm.

At Newton, in something of an experiment soon after becoming CEO, I introduced a four-day-week option for any member of staff who wished to take it. The option was for an initial six months, and then employees could decide to stay on the four-day week or revert to full time. As many men as women took up the offer, including some of the most senior male fund managers, who then stayed with this arrangement for a decade or more. There was no stigma attached to the decision and it was not a diversity initiative but part of overall talent motivation efforts and management of the company’s resources. At the same time, the scheme certainly helped maternity returners feel confident that they would still be valued if they wanted to work a shorter week – and that they wouldn’t be perceived as getting ‘special treatment’.

In 2012, I helped devise a national survey of women’s experiences in the workplace, led by Business in the Community, one of the Prince of Wales’ charities. We wanted to hear particularly from women in the 28–40 age group since that is when women’s career paths tend to fall behind those of their male colleagues (and no, it’s not just because that’s when women have children – the data shows that women with no children also tend to be promoted less than men). A total of 25,000 people took part in Project 28–40, including women older and younger than our target group, and 2,000 men, giving useful reference points. The feedback showed that only half the women felt supported by their employer in their career aspirations. Flexible working was seen as helping with work–life balance but there was a stigma attached, undermining chances of career progression. Only 40% of respondents said that their organisation valued flexible working as a way of working efficiently.

Overwhelmingly, women said they did not want special programmes, they just wanted to be managed better.

Increasingly, in our knowledge-based economy, performance will be measurable in terms of results, rather than hours at the desk. Some jobs lend themselves more easily to this and, given that flexible working was not even a concept in the late 1980s, I made a fortunate choice of career. At the end of each quarter or year, the performance of the funds I managed stood as an objective record for anyone to see. It would have been much tougher to combine a large family with being, say, a corporate finance lawyer, where the work is transaction-based and individual contributions are often measured in billable hours. In 2016, PwC’s 25th annual Law Firms Survey revealed that newly qualified lawyers at the UK’s top ten law firms are set an average annual billing target of nearly 1,600 hours. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most lawyers fall short.

The meritocracy that I benefited from at Newton can be the corporate cultural norm, not the exception. Beyond a small number of organisations, we haven’t yet really shaken up our working structures to attract more diverse talent – or taken full advantage of technology to make work more of an activity than a place. Instead, we’ve tended to add in programmes around the edges designed to encourage those who are outside the ‘norm’, but often this draws attention to the problem and may have the counterproductive effect of making difference appear troublesome. We’ll explore approaches that work better in Chapter 6.

There’s also a tendency to leave those in the diverse or under-represented groups in charge of solving the problem of their own under-representation. This is, I promise, an impossible task (even if an executive sponsor is drafted in to cheerlead). ‘Affinity groups’ or special interest networks can encourage people to feel less alone, but won’t do much for their chances of promotion and obviously do not foster inclusion. Talking to ourselves is never going to get us very far.

One evening, I arrived to give a speech at a diversity event hosted by one of the big four accountancy firms. The first problem was that I could see from a quick glance that the audience comprised only women, ethnic minorities, and one or two disabled people – where were all the white men? I was told they hadn’t been invited, which immediately seemed to limit the event’s potential impact. The few members of the leadership team who were there in a supportive role appeared downcast. I asked what the problem was: earlier that same day, the firm had the chance to pitch to an important prospect but the presentation team had been asked to leave as soon as they entered the room. Apparently the potential client had specifically asked for a diverse team but the group that had arrived to present was all-white, male and middle-aged. My hosts explained that of course they had read the brief, and a young woman had been due to go along but she was off sick and no one had remembered the diversity point until it was too late. The issue just wasn’t front and centre of anyone’s mind. In contrast, Stewart Newton had created an investment philosophy where difference was integral to the thought-process, where multiple perspectives were valued. That was great not just for me, but for anyone who enjoyed thinking laterally, being challenged and challenging others.

The third essential ingredient behind my newfound career success was the true partnership with Richard. My career setback after our first son was born had not put us off having more children. Both Richard and I had grown up in small families and shared a romantic vision of the happy chaos of a large number of children. When we married we said we would love to have five. Neither of us is from a wealthy background and we had to be self-sufficient. Fulfilling our dream of a big and happy family involved some stresses, including financially, although we were conscious that this was our choice.

We had not planned to start our family so quickly, but were young, rather relaxed and, as it turned out, able to produce babies rather easily (or, at least, conceive). Our first child, Fitzroy, was born ten months after our wedding. Young women often ask me when is a ‘good’ time to have a baby. I always say there is no ideal time, although I am grateful that we started to have our children when we were young by today’s standards. We weren’t perhaps ready, but as first-time parents do, we learned quickly.

The financial struggles when Fitz was born were challenging, though. We were amongst the many young professionals who had borrowed money in the late 1980s to buy a small flat, only to see interest rates soar and our mortgage payments balloon, while property prices collapsed. Neither of us had a high salary and for a while, our outgoings outstripped our earnings, a clearly unsustainable situation. One income was not enough to cover the mortgage so we both needed to work full-time, but our only realistic childcare option was a day nursery near my office. The nursery fees were around a quarter of our after-tax income before we had paid even a penny of the outsized mortgage bill. That first year I returned to work after having Fitz was tough, particularly when I didn’t get the promotion that might have eased our financial strain, but the experience also made us very determined. My new job at Newton came with a salary rise and Richard found a higher-paid position too. Mortgage rates came down and although our flat was worth far less than we had paid for it, bigger properties had suffered even larger price falls, so we were finally able to move.

Buying a modest house enabled us to hire a wonderful nanny, Paula, who stayed with us for more than twenty years. She always lived out, which gave us precious family time together and space for her, but meant that either Richard or I had to be home before she left at 6 p.m. Richard was a financial journalist and had multiple daily deadlines so I would always do the morning shift, waiting until she arrived at 7.30 a.m. Paula was incredibly reliable, but every day I felt anxious about getting to the office on time by public transport.

There was no slack at all in the arrangement, no room for error or lateness, and the stress of us both rushing in and out of the home, often distracted by work when we were there, trying to ‘do it all’, was taking its toll, including on our relationship. Richard and I needed to work out how not just to survive but to be happy. We took our time having our second and third children, who were born more than three years apart.

It is a big part of our story that when we were expecting Millie, our fourth, who was born just a year after our third child, both Richard and I knew something had to change. With another baby on the way we felt at breaking point and one evening discussed how we could possibly make it all work. Richard volunteered to go freelance and work from home: he would be able to play a bigger role in bringing up our family. He also wanted a freer existence, having never enjoyed office politics. Over time, as we had yet more children, his opportunity (and desire) to take on paid work dwindled and he became a full-time, stay-at-home dad.

This reversal of traditional roles was ahead of its time: Millie is now at university. It has not always been perfect (nothing is) but it has been key to our ultimately happy family life as well as helping my career. At the beginning, we were completely open as to how things might evolve – neither of us knew whether we would be able to afford the arrangement becoming permanent. We definitely had to be careful about money: ‘staycations’, for example, were a necessity rather than a choice and it was a long time before we could decorate our new home. These were minor sacrifices for our happier family life.

Both of us feel confident that the set-up has been beneficial to the children: Richard enjoys being at home, is completely dedicated to being at every sports fixture, likes cooking and (most of the time) doesn’t mind the endless chauffeuring. It’s been wonderful for me to know that the children have been benefiting, both logistically and emotionally, from one parent being at home. Meanwhile, since I have always wanted to be home whenever possible, throughout my career I have been disciplined about leaving the office in time for family suppers most evenings. This time together at the end of each day has always been an important part of our family life.

Of course, with nine children, it would have been impossible for me to get to all (or even most) of the school plays, concerts and ballet performances, so I have prioritised those events that are each child’s ‘special’ thing. I do regret missing certain moments, especially not being there when someone simply wants to talk, but I know it has been a good arrangement overall. We cannot attain perfection, and to strive for it is a recipe for feeling inadequate. Most importantly, our children are happy and thriving (at least most of them, most of the time). Some of my male peers never see their children during the week – a situation that would make both my family and me quite miserable.

Ours is still an unusual arrangement and I often get asked about it, including questions about whether I feel guilty (not exactly helpful at those moments when I do) and how I ‘have it all’. When I guest-edited BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in December 2016, I asked five high-powered men, ranging from bestselling author Michael Lewis to the chairman of Barclays Bank, John Mcfarlane, how they balanced work and family life. All of them said it was a question they had never been asked before. It was also interesting that none of them answered that it was all possible thanks to their wonderful wife or partner. I suspect this was for fear of seeming politically incorrect, although I feel completely able to credit Richard for making it all possible, and he is praised for his modernity.

I realise now that the conversation Richard and I had all those years ago about how, together, we could make it all work is still quite uncommon. It’s a very personal matter for each family to work out how to bring up children with love and time, how to earn enough money, develop careers, contribute to the community and, hopefully, have time for wider family, friends and fun. Working together to make things as good as they can be, whatever role each of us plays, is crucial to building a happy life together. When she was CEO of the Financial Times, Rona Fairhead was asked for one piece of advice for girls. ‘Marry well,’ she said, before explaining that she didn’t mean marry someone wealthy, but someone who understands you, who is a genuine partner.

We do not always have the luxury of choice and I am very conscious that not everyone can find a true partner in life. Sheryl Sandberg tragically became a single mother when her 47-year-old husband died suddenly: she has since spoken poignantly of her awareness that the chapter entitled ‘Make your partner a real partner’ in her influential book Lean In does not always apply. (Sandberg also realised through her terrible loss that it is very hard to ‘lean in’ when life is difficult; in her own words, ‘Lean in? I could barely stand up’).

Young women sometimes say it is easy for me, with Richard’s support, a relatively high salary and greater flexibility with my time than someone starting out. I always stress that while I’m very aware of these advantages, they haven’t always been there. Struggles have been part of not just my journey but most people’s too; it’s almost inevitable that any successful person has had their share of failures. When Richard and I hit our low point of financial stress, my mother reminded me that nothing lasts for ever, and that helped me to focus on finding a solution rather than be dragged down by anxiety. The experience again made me realise that I could not rely too much on others but needed to take control of my own destiny as far as possible. We will return to these big topics later; for now, let me emphasise the importance of recognising that each of our lives is different, but there are things we can do that will make the most of a situation – or shrink our opportunities. Whether you have a partner or not, you need a few strong allies, friends, mentors: people you can really confide in, who will give you good advice. Ultimately we have to make our own decisions, but no person is an island and none of us has an unlimited well of confidence, or all the answers.

I was once interviewed on live TV about workplace equality and the (female) presenter kept challenging me on one point: surely, she argued, it must be possible for both partners to have ‘high-powered’ careers with children? It was slightly perplexing that she kept returning to the topic, but as I walked off set, the producer explained that my interviewer was getting married very soon. Apparently, she and her fiancé were struggling with the idea that one of them might need to be less focused on their career once they started a family. Both saw that as a potential career setback or even a death knell – and the woman was particularly worried because she could see it would be more likely to be her, not her future husband, stepping back. Looking ahead, I am confident that more people (not just women) will be able to take advantage of more fluid ways of working, to ‘dial up’ or ‘dial down’ their careers from time to time – and so feel less concerned about making a binary choice. As life expectancy increases, we will need to work longer and may have two or three careers (this may be forced upon us, as employment opportunities change along with the rise of artificial intelligence). Taking a few years off in the middle, or changing the pace for a while, should really make little difference overall. ‘Returnships’ – the opportunity to return to a meaningful role after a gap of several years – are likely to become increasingly prevalent and part of a big shake-up in employment patterns.