Industry expert reflects on a successful career, and looking forward to a new role
It’s more than thirty years since Fran Green (pictured) entered the financial services industry, but as she prepares for her next role, she retains her drive to embrace new challenges.
Green’s career has seen her work for high profile names such as Shawbrook Bank, Sesame Bankhall Group, Precise Mortgages, and Source Insurance, mostly in sales or key account management roles, and as an experienced business development manager.
She recently departed more2life – part of Key Group - where she was its national and networks manager. Her exit, she suggests, followed a downturn in equity release business due to market challenges. “I was at peace with it, to be honest,” she explained. “The market is where it is at the moment. The economics don't work in the same way, and I leave Key Group and more2life with a whole host of friends and happiness in my heart. I was able to make, I think, a big difference while I was there, but now is absolutely the time to look for my next opportunity. I love a challenge, I love learning new things and I am very people focused. I'm hugely excited.”
Green has come a long way from the earliest days of her career, when – aged 17 – she took a job as an office junior in a solicitor’s firm. “I was running the cheques up to the nearby Furness Building Society,” she recalled. “I was in there every other day and they offered me a job when a cashier clerk position came up - that's where my history in financial services starts. I worked my way up to become a mandated underwriter, before becoming the Furness Building Society's first ever – not just first ever woman – but first ever BDM.
“It was a completely different world. I know in hindsight I got those first broker meetings because I was a woman and they were curious. I got the second appointments with them by impressing them in the first meeting. But looking back, I'm very proud of being that's society's first ever BDM and a bit of a trailblazer from a female point of view, although I didn't realise how groundbreaking it was at the time.”
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A high level of integrity
Green quickly developed a passion for field-based sales and hitting targets – and appreciated genuine customer service. “Mutuals are a lovely world where there's a high level of integrity,” she said. “They are really customer-centric above all else, and that taught me the right way to sell, which I think has been a really good bedrock for the feedback I get in any market I've ever worked in, in terms of my work ethic, but also my care in putting the customer first. You did the origination, you did the mortgage interviewing, you understood risk and how all that worked before then going out on the road. Having that technical knowledge has been something that I've been able to bring to a field role – or when leading field-based teams, helping somebody grow in their own role and be successful. That’s incredibly satisfying to me.
“I've always worked to an ethos of if you do the right thing, good things will happen. I always start with the customer who’s at the end of the journey. What's the right thing to do for them? How can I help the broker help the customer in whatever the circumstance is? This involves problem solving, and I’ve got a lot of positive feedback from people who've had challenges that I've been able to help them overcome, with the provider that I've worked with.”
She continued: “I've had such an eclectic background. I've been really lucky that I've been able to use lots of different skills in every organisation. I worked for a mortgage club as a packager, very much around specialist lending, and that then became a network, which taught me lots about regulation and how to apply it. Regulation has changed the landscape. Although I'm best known for lending, I'm also really passionate about protection. I was in general protection for five years, and that taught me much about insurance and risk, but also the psychology of selling, so I could impart that to our advisers to help them. Then I went into second charges and became a subject matter expert in equity release. I am lucky that I've got such a broad church of experience in terms of lending - from an underwriter point of view, advising, training, coaching, compliance, and protection, so I can cast a broad net.”
Green acknowledges a well-worn but pertinent mantra - that if you truly enjoy what you do for a living, you don't work a day in your life. “If I'm loving what I'm doing, then the 12 hours a day I'll inevitably do, and the odd bit at a weekend, doesn't hurt,” she said. “I absolutely love doing it - especially in my most recent role. The lifetime mortgage base is one of the most rewarding you could work in, when you can help people save their homes. People have that peace of mind that a new solution has given them.”
What, then, has been the best business lesson Green has learned in her career so far? “Emotional intelligence,” she said. “Just think about what you're going to say and who your audience is, because some people don't want to hear it, and sometimes you need to take your time to say the same thing, but in the correct way to the correct audience.”
Taking stock of what she has observed during her time in the industry, Green favours more holistic advice across all financial services sectors. “One thing that I have seen too much over the three decades of my career is people putting themselves in silos and not providing a full service,” she observed. “Customers are not necessarily getting the full support that they need, and that may mean that they are missing out on some great protection advice. Advisers need to open their eyes up more broadly, not only for the benefit of their customers, but also for the diversification within their own businesses - for future success.”
