Reynolds, who grew up in the Black Country, said accents in the region were already very diverse but when he took his first job in Birmingham which was only 12 miles away, he was asked to “temper” the way he spoke as people could not understand.
He continued his career without feeling too aware of his accent until he got a national job which required more travelling.
At one point, Reynolds was told secondhand that someone said he would never become chief executive with a Black Country accent.
He said: “I had it referred back to me, not directly, that yes, I wouldn’t make it. I think it was also the hair at the time as well which was slightly spikey, but they said, ‘How can you imagine someone with an accent like that actually running a business?’”
Reynolds said he did not feel that his accent ultimately held him back but probably slowed his progress.
Brad Fordham, head of mortgages at Santander UK, grew up in north London and found that in his early career when he was a branch manager, people seemed to have a perception of him that was “hard to shift”.
He was not part of the graduate intake, did not go to university, and was probably seen as a “wide boy”, Fordham said.
He added: “It’s not until someone sees past that and gives you a chance to show that you can progress and do something different and do a bigger job and so on.. it definitely plays a part.”
Reynolds agreed, adding that it was about “getting people to believe that you’re something from beyond the accent and not people taking the unconscious bias of what the sound of an accent could actually mean to you as a person”.
Seeming approachable
On the contrary, Reynolds and Fordham acknowledged times where their accents made them seem easier to talk to.
Fordham said it could make someone seem more “approachable, maybe more down to earth, maybe a little more real”.
He added: “Which certainly when you’re leading a team… helps, because, from a leadership directional basis, people will listen to you.”
Reynolds said it made people feel like “you’re from their own community”.
However, Fordham said it was not an advantage at Board level as people tended to have a certain credibility if they spoke articulately even if what they were saying was “nonsense”.
Reynolds said at more senior levels he was not sure whether it was that “people in the room don’t take you seriously, or whether you feel because you’re the only one in the room like that, that they’re not taking you seriously”.
He added: “I think there’s a mixture of both.”
Ingrained perceptions
Fordham said he sometimes fell into the trap of judging people based on their accent and noticing when people “spoke nicely”, “well” or “articulately”.
“Even I, against what I’ve been saying about my accent, you still in your mind are conditioned to think that if you speak in the queen’s English really nicely, you’ve been to private school… there’s that kind of sense or aura,” he added.
When speaking of a business development manager (BDM) from the North East who said he would not relocate for work due to his accent, Fordham and Reynolds advised the BDM to recondition their way of thinking.
Fordham said he would encourage anyone who thought that way to change their mindset, especially if they wanted to move to London, which tends to be more diverse. Reynolds said it was more about skill set and desire than other factors.
Listen to the podcast [26:21], hosted by Bharat Sagar, ambassador at large at AE3 Media, featuring Martin Reynolds, chief executive of SimplyBiz Mortgages and Brad Fordham, head of mortgages at Santander UK.
