Speaking about getting to the tops of their careers in the face of adversity, Hollingworth, chief distribution officer at LSL Financial Services, said an “awful lot of people” had helped her over her career, such as Roger Perrett of Perrett & Co Financial Services, who taught her how to maintain ethics and morals while putting the customer first.
“That was ingrained in me from the very first [mortgage] sale that I did, so that put me in good stead,” she added.
Hollingworth said there were people in every job she had who had taught her something from a leadership point of view.
“Some of those people have taught me what not to be, which I take as positively as I do the people who have shown me what I should be and do,” she said.
O’Donoghue, head of secured lending at HSBC UK, said she loved her first financial services role, which was in a customer-facing role, because she was able to speak with people and find out about their lives.
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Six months into that job, she covered a bank manager who was away and then realised she wanted a leadership role, and that was how she started a senior position early in her career.
When she was eventually introduced to the mortgage sector, O’Donoghue did not think it was for her as there was no customer contact, but once she started, it was like a “baptism of fire”.
“It was probably one of my steepest learning curves, and to this day I will look back and say, ‘you know what? I’m glad I had the first taster’; it wasn’t an easy journey because suddenly I had to learn how to operate in another environment… and the culture and environment I was actually learning from was the bit I enjoyed the least.”
She fell in love with mortgages and their importance but did not feel a sense of belonging at the time, adding: “A culture really does make or break you in terms of what you enjoy.”
Driven by doubt
Host Bharat Sagar, podcast host and chair of DIFF, asked if this was the point at which people started questioning how O’Donoghue got to her position.
O’Donoghue responded that in the corporate world, “you’re exposed to a lot”, and it could be “brutal”.
She said her passion for promoting inclusion came from what she had experienced first-hand.
Hollingworth said people sometimes joked about her numerous job changes, but said all of her jobs had been “purposeful” as she was curious and “if I get a bit bored, I start poking around”.
“Where that’s taken me is… from distributor to lender, so that I know that side of the fence, into technology, so that I know that side of the fence and then back full circle into distribution because that is really… where my passion lies.”
Hollingworth said she had had a “broad spectrum of jobs” and most were purposefully chosen so she could experience the different areas of the industry.
Hollingworth said she had “a thousand and one stories” about being a female in the industry, some of which “aren’t very pleasant, some of them are damn right frustrating”.
She would be at events with her colleague, Andy Walton, and people would frequently come up to her to ask where the toilets were, when lunch would be and where the tea and coffee were.
“I’d be standing next to [Walton] like… try asking him where the tea and coffee is, or do you want me to just run the hoover around whilst I’m at it?
“We used to have a laugh and a joke about it, but all throughout my career, whether it’d be the sexual harassment that we’ve seen in the industry or the inappropriateness, but I’m the sort of person that I go, ‘alright, I’ll show you’ and that spurs me on,” she said.
O’Donoghue said that resonated with her, as being doubted also drove her to achieve more.
She said this was why she was so focused on inclusion, and even in school, she had always been the person to bring people together. She said this became more apparent when she entered the workplace.
“I just feel sad for people who are not open-minded; they’re missing out on so much for themselves,” O’Donoghue said.
She added that while she had been acknowledged for the work she had done in financial services, including with an MBE, she would do it all over again, even without recognition.
“Is it nice that I’ve been given an MBE for it? Yes, it’s nice, thank you very much, but the work doesn’t stop,” added O’Donoghue.
She said diversity and inclusion were “part of what we do every single day”.
Listen to and watch the full episode here [35:04], hosted by Bharat Sagar, chair of DIFF, with guests Emma Hollingworth, chief distribution officer at LSL Financial Services, and Oli O’Donoghue, head of secured lending at HSBC UK.
