
Speaking on the Diversity and Inclusivity Finance Forum (DIFF) podcast for being a trailblazer, McIntyre said when she came to the UK aged eight, it was the “first time I experienced being different”.
Reflecting back on her life, McIntyre said there were key life stages where “things happened and you built certain skills and strategies to navigate things that were challenging that I now use today”.
She said: “Different people discover their different [neurodivergent] condition… at different stages. Unfortunately, diagnosis wasn’t something my parents knew about. School didn’t understand it, so nobody knew that the reason I was struggling in school was dyslexia.”
The outcome was that McIntyre “really struggled” to read, and read quickly, and she was often the child the teacher picked on to stand up to read aloud, which terrified her.
“In some ways, when you’re put into the deep end and it’s that hard, you have to build muscles, which means actually, ironically, at this point in my career… I don’t find it easy to do public speaking, but I definitely developed a skill and a practice that means I’m not entirely uncomfortable when I do it.

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“And that’s got to be linked to being dyslexic at school,” McIntyre said.
Turning a challenge into a skill
Even though she was unaware of her condition when she started working as a lawyer, McIntyre discovered that the career required “a lot of dyslexic skills” she already had. She said lawyers had to be creative, like people with dyslexia are, as well as strategic.
She was required to read long documents, which she was unable to do in the time needed, so learned to skim-read.
“Provided I understood 80% of it, and there’s still risk in that, I [could] connect the dots and keep up with everyone,” McIntyre added.
She said dyslexia worked against her in many ways, but her success came not from its challenges but the gifts it gave her, as well as an attitude of “great determination and commitment”.
“I don’t give up, even when I’m failing. When you’ve had it really tough, you kind of flex the muscles because there’s no other option,” McIntyre said.
She added: “It’s a wonderful thing, dyslexia; it’s not a condition that’s bad, it’s a condition to be understood.”
Choosing a respected career
McIntyre’s parents said she could do any job she wanted, as long as it was “a doctor, an engineer, or [an accountant]”.
She said those choices were deliberate coming from her father, who was a black man from Nigeria.
Because of the prejudice McIntyre’s father faced, he knew it was beneficial to have a profession that would make people see his job first and his race second.
McIntyre said: “It’s a shield. I think it’s quite common, certainly with Nigerian parents where they really are quite strict… but behind that was a protection and a layer because they knew you would likely be more successful if you had one of those [jobs] than if you didn’t.”
Host Bharat Sagar asked if people in the industry still made assumptions about others based on their appearance.
Kevin Roberts, director at Legal & General (L&G) Mortgage Services, said it was hard to speak about everyone else but “without doubt, I’m still plagued [by] and full of unconscious bias”. He said he was on a journey to keep uncovering it and it was something he encouraged others to do.
He added: “The more we listen to inspiring people like Sian and understand what other people are going through and not just look at the world through your lens.”
When asked if working in an organisation like L&G – where diversity is embedded in its practices – made Roberts more curious and in tune with diversity, he was also asked if people could thrive in a company culture that was less open.
“If the culture is there, naturally it becomes easier to take it, but you infuse it. For me, it’s not a case of, ‘does it help me’.
“I wouldn’t work for a company that wasn’t like L&G. I’m too dogmatic and curious; I think it’s the case that L&G having that culture attracts people and makes me want to stay,” Roberts said.