Thirty-four years from the branch counter to the compensation committee

Mandate

Modernise a fragmented HR function for a bank planning to grow by acquisition, then lead the people side of the Kelverdine integration and make the combined bank a single employer.

Outcomes

• Retained 191 of 212 named Kelverdine colleagues at twenty-four months with a US$14.6m pool, against a proposed US$38m grade-based pool.
• Replaced the branch points plan for 2,900 colleagues; complaints about unrequested products fell from 312 to 41 a year.
• Recorded evidenced successors for 14 of 17 board-designated critical roles, up from 6 when the standard began in 2023.
• Moved 194 operations colleagues into new internal roles as automation removed about 310 roles' worth of work.
• Supported the compensation committee from 68% say-on-pay support in 2024 to 93% in 2026.

Decisions in context

I joined Callowmere to modernise a capable but fragmented HR function: incentive plans were owned by business lines, succession was a list and HR operations ran on three systems. Two years later we agreed to acquire Kelverdine, and my remit widened to the people side of the integration. I led the retention design, title and grade mapping for 4,300 colleagues, benefits harmonisation and the communication plan for the systems conversion in May 2024. Since then the work has been to make the combined bank one employer: a single branch incentive plan, a redeployment approach for operations automation and evidence-based succession for the seventeen roles the board designates as critical. I prepare the compensation committee's materials and attend its meetings apart from executive sessions, and I present control-role succession to the risk committee. I am not a director of the bank or the holding company.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; completing the integration programme and the commercial bank incentive redesign.

Mandate

Rebuild collections and sales contact-centre incentive plans after a group conduct review, and reduce attrition in the card operations workforce.

Outcomes

• Redesigned collections pay so that a correctly placed hardship arrangement counted as a resolution; conduct complaints in collections fell 38%.
• Reduced annual contact-centre attrition from 48% to 33% through a published progression path and fairer schedule rules.
• Moved 3,100 contact-centre colleagues to home working in six weeks in 2020, with service levels within one point of the prior quarter.
• Reduced the card business's incentive plans from 19 to 7, each with a compliance review before renewal.

Decisions in context

I moved from enterprise compensation into business-line HR to work with a larger operating workforce and to see incentive design from the operations floor. Orrinford's card and merchant businesses employed most of their people in contact centres, where attrition and conduct risk were closely linked: new collectors under pressure were more likely to push a customer towards a payment the customer could not sustain. A group conduct review had questioned the collections plans before I arrived. I worked with collections leaders and the compliance team to change what counted as a successful call, introduced quality reviews by people outside the collections reporting line and published a progression path that gave contact-centre staff a reason to stay beyond their first year. In 2020 I led the people side of moving 3,100 colleagues to home working, which changed my view of where location matters and where it does not.

Reason for the move

Recruited by Callowmere to lead enterprise HR at a bank preparing to grow.

Mandate

Bring every incentive plan into one inventory with a risk review, and prepare the compensation committee for say-on-pay and post-crisis supervisory expectations.

Outcomes

• Reduced 63 incentive plans, several previously unknown to HR, to 21 with a single approval route.
• Introduced deferral and risk adjustment for about 140 senior risk-takers.
• Prepared the committee materials for the bank's first advisory say-on-pay vote in 2011; support stayed above 90% through 2016.
• Rebuilt mortgage loan-officer pay so that it did not vary with loan pricing, adding a quality measure based on file defects.

Decisions in context

I took over enterprise compensation when banks were being asked, with good reason, to show that they understood what they paid for. Ravensholt had grown through acquisitions, and its incentive plans had multiplied with it; several were run by business lines with no HR involvement. I built an inventory, set one approval route and asked the chief risk officer's team to review each plan before renewal. We introduced deferral and risk adjustment for senior risk-takers and rebuilt mortgage loan-officer pay so it did not depend on loan pricing. I also became the main author of the compensation committee's papers, including those for the bank's first advisory say-on-pay vote. Writing for directors forced me to state the decision and its alternatives on one page, a discipline I still rely on. I left to work closer to a large operating workforce and to test my ideas where incentives were paid weekly.

Reason for the move

Moved to Orrinford Payments for business-line HR leadership with a larger operating workforce.

Mandate

Redesign consumer bank incentives after an internal review found accounts opened without clear customer intent.

Outcomes

• Cut the branch points table from 22 products to 9 and introduced a sixty-day funding requirement.
• Reduced disputed-account complaints by 54% within eighteen months.
• Introduced monthly manager reviews of account openings across 210 branches.
• Removed call-centre incentive payments for credit-line increases during the 2008–2009 downturn.

Decisions in context

This was my move from the branch network into HR, and it began with a problem I had helped to surface. I joined the compensation team to redesign the plans that paid 2,300 branch and call-centre colleagues. I knew how those plans felt from the branch side but little about plan governance, cost modelling or the legal review a change required, and I learnt those things on the job and through my master's studies. The redesign reduced complaints substantially. It also left the basic instruction intact: a banker was still paid for the next product. During the 2008–2009 downturn I removed incentive payments for credit-line increases in the call centre, a change that was unpopular with sales leadership and, looking back, overdue. The role gave me a technical grounding in reward and a lasting scepticism about partial fixes.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead enterprise compensation and performance.

Mandate

Convert sixteen former Pellingham branches to Ravensholt's systems, products and sales practices, and run the district.

Outcomes

• Kept 14 of 16 branch managers through the systems and product conversion.
• Retained 94% of district deposits through the first year after conversion.
• Reported unused secondary accounts in 2003, starting the consumer bank's incentive review.

Decisions in context

When Ravensholt acquired Pellingham, I was asked to take sixteen former Pellingham branches through their conversion to Ravensholt's systems, products and sales practices. I learnt how an acquisition looks from the receiving end: people who had exercised judgement for years were handed procedures that assumed they had none. I kept fourteen of sixteen branch managers by explaining which decisions were still theirs and arguing for exceptions where Pellingham's practice was better. Deposit retention through the first year was 94%. Ravensholt's sales culture was more intense than Pellingham's, and by 2003 I had noticed unusual numbers of unused secondary accounts in several branches. I sampled the files with an operations officer and reported what we found. That report led to the consumer bank's incentive review and, in January 2005, to my move into compensation.

Reason for the move

Asked to lead the redesign of consumer bank incentives, moving from the branch network into HR.

Mandate

Complete the trainee rotation, then run the Easton branch.

Outcomes

• Completed rotations in deposit operations, consumer lending and branch service before taking a branch in 1995.
• Grew the Easton branch's deposits from US$78m to US$96m between 1995 and 1999.
• Halved cash-balancing errors by changing how teller shifts handed over.
• Trained six tellers who later became branch managers.

Decisions in context

Pellingham's trainee programme was a practical apprenticeship. I worked in deposit operations, processed consumer loans and served at the counter before running a branch. As branch manager in Easton from 1995, I was responsible for eleven colleagues, our customers' service and a modest lending authority. It was there that I first saw how a pay plan changes a team. When the bank introduced a cross-selling bonus in 1997, my colleagues adapted within weeks, and I adapted with them without questioning what we were being asked to do. I also learnt how much of a branch's value lay in tellers who knew customers by name and noticed when something was wrong. Several of the people I trained went on to run branches. The acquisition in 1999 ended Pellingham as an independent bank and began my education in mergers.

Reason for the move

Pellingham was acquired by Ravensholt Bank in April 1999; I accepted a district role in the combined bank.