What does your role at OSB Group entail?

I head a team that is dedicated to building strong working relationships with our corporate accounts.

We achieve this by creating an individually tailored strategy for each partner, including working closely with our marketing department to produce bespoke material, events and educational training.

Did you or the company make any changes to business operations during the pandemic that will be maintained in the long term?

We had to adapt quickly to a more technology-based means of communicating with and supporting our corporate account partners.

Although it was tough to begin with because we had to source and implement a secure platform, we’re now one of the leading lenders for delivering educational training sessions using technology, as well as face-to-face sessions now that social distancing is being lifted.

As a woman working in the finance industry, do you feel there is equality in the sector?

We’re getting there. I’ve been in the mortgage industry for approximately 35 years and it has come on in leaps and bounds since I joined. Do I think we’re 100% there? Not quite. But things have significantly improved.

Fortunately, here at OSB we’re committed to a more diverse and inclusive workforce as part of our culture, and I’d certainly like to see more women represented at higher levels across the industry.

What has been your biggest challenge in your role to date?

I’d have to say the challenges posed over the past 18 months or so by the pandemic. Overnight, I had to restructure our corporate account business model and the way my team supported our corporate account partners. We had to go from being a company that primarily did business face to face to one that could support it virtually. This is something we’ll continue to find a balance with in the future.

I’m proud to say, though, that it was a challenge to which we rose quickly and efficiently, and our online buy-to-let masterclasses, for example, have been attended virtually by more than 7,000 brokers.

What is the main thing that keeps you in the mortgage industry?

It’s the people. The mortgage industry is quite insular, so you get the chance to form long-lasting relationships with an amazing network of people who are passionate about what they do and the difference it can make to our customers’ lives.

No two days are the same, so I also like the opportunity to be creative and strategic as I plan my diary and work on strategies with my team.

If you had not chosen this career path, what other professions appealed to you?

After the last mortgage crash, I took a couple of years out to study for a fine-arts degree in photography, so I’d have to say a career in photo-journalism.

It’s still something I love doing and I spend a lot of my spare time out and about taking pictures, especially ones with an environmental theme.

If you were chancellor for a week, what would you prioritise?

Policies to protect the environment, such as increasing spending on research into alternative energy. I’d also look at ways to protect our oceans and the seas around the UK.

Do you have any secret talents?

We won’t talk about my party trick of doing the splits!

But some of my environmental photography was  published in a Brazilian magazine. They’d seen my imagery and asked to use two of my photos to support a powerful piece they were covering on promoting natural births.

I’m also a keen chess player. I’m not quite grand master level but I was able to beat my teacher at primary school and it proved a useful hustle as a penniless student.

What is the best advice you have received?

My mum once told me: if you’re going to do a job, always do it properly. It’s a mantra I’ve stuck to.