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00:10
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Hello and welcome to Standard Bank CIB's Why She Leads podcast. |
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00:14
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My name is Nzinga Kunta and I'm so pleased to be in conversation with women leaders in Standard Bank CIB. |
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00:20
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We're going to be finding out about their journey to success, the obstacles that were in their path as they make their way and how they got over them and that age-old question, how do you balance your personal and professional life. |
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00:35
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Joining me today, Debora Becker, the executive of Equity Risk at Standard Bank. |
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00:39
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Debora, thank you so much for your time on why she leads today. |
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00:43
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Just take me through how and where you grew up. |
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00:46
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I grew up on a farm in the Karoo, just south of a town called Doar, some people may know it. |
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00:55
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And I spent the first six years running wild on the farm before going to boarding school in town. |
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01:03
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from grade one, from six years old. |
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01:08
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It was a lovely childhood. |
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01:09
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I think back with fond memories of everything we got up to. |
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01:13
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And yeah, I think it was really lovely. |
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01:18
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What's it like to grow up on a farm? |
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01:19
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It's amazing. |
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01:21
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I didn't know anything different, so I didn't know a lot to compare it with. |
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01:25
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But we were offered a lot of independence from a very, very early stage. |
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01:32
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because you could play, your play area was much bigger than a kid growing up in the suburbs. |
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01:40
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We also had loads of friends around on the farm, aside from siblings there were other kids that we played with the whole time. |
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01:48
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And we then went to boarding school from a fairly young age, where you then again spent a lot of time with friends. |
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At that point, we were already taught or had to learn how to balance everything, how to make sure you do your homework at a very young age while also trying to make time because the friends are playing outside and having loads of fun. |
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So it was a really, really lovely experience. |
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02:19
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And so I'm sure that that discipline that you're learning as a child, studying in boarding school, also helped when you were older with your law degree, with your economics degree and your career as well. |
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02:30
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It definitely did. |
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02:32
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I think knowing which responsibilities to take full ownership of was really important to learn from that age and going to university you knew you had one shot at this and you had to make it work. |
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02:48
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So I did that and what it helped is that my father also made us aware that he'll fund our studies but at the beginning of a year and you had to figure out how you're going to make it that funding work throughout the whole year and and if you failed a subject and had to do a few extra years that was probably up to luckily i didn't have to have to test it but um you had to figure out how to find that yourself so um that responsibility was was one that i felt heavily it sounds like although you were independent your parents or your father had quite a big influence on you growing up? |
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03:31
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My parents definitely did, yeah, both of them. |
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03:35
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Through the way they enabled us to pursue whatever we enjoyed or were interested in. |
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03:45
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Being in boarding school, you didn't see them as often as other kids see their parents, but I always felt I had their support and that with their backing, I can achieve whatever I aimed for. |
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03:59
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You speak about your parents making you see that you can do whatever you want, essentially, and seeing that not confining you maybe to gender roles. |
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04:10
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Just tell me about that. |
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04:11
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That's a bit tricky because where I'm from, a lot of my peers are now probably in more traditional household roles, maybe stay-at-home moms, farmer's wives, and so on. |
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04:26
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And my parents would have been okay if that was me as well. |
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04:29
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if that was my choice. |
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But they also, I think, knew after studying that that was probably not where I was going to end up. |
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04:39
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I also have an older sister who had a similar career path to mine and she's just one year ahead of me, so she paved the way for a lot of things. |
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And then seeing her do things made me realize, well, it can be done as well. |
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04:58
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Beautiful. |
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04:59
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And so we're speaking about influences in your personal life, in your professional life. |
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Tell me about some of the women or people that also made you think like that. |
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When I joined Standard Bank, it was on the grad program. |
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05:15
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So I've only really seen female leaders in this group. |
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05:21
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And it was a pretty spectacular group of women that I've been... |
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privileged to see and follow and some of them I've been close to like Annarie Cornelissen, there's another lady Mina Toxos who is based in London and I spent some time there with her as well. |
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She's absolutely amazing and Mina also spoke to me some to some extent about work-life balance and how she was managing children while building her career. |
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and it was just wonderful to have somebody who speaks so freely and openly about it and share those views with me and that was way before I had any kids. |
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06:04
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Those were people I had personal relationships with but there are other women in the bank that I just looked up to at different points in my life and thought if they can make this work I can also do it. |
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06:20
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Yeah somebody like Jill van Velden when I was just a grad she was head of credit for South Africa I think. |
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06:27
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Sune Bruggeman was chief risk officer at some point. |
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06:31
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Just to name a few, yeah. |
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06:34
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Okay, let's hear from someone who's influenced you or who's had a role in your career at some point. |
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06:40
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Hi all. |
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06:41
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I used to work with Deborah in the last few years of my career with Standard Bank ending in 2011. |
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06:49
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There's a few things that I want to say about Deborah in terms of her leadership. |
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06:55
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capabilities. |
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06:56
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She joined my team in country risk around 2008-2009 when it was quite a tumulus time for the country's team because we tried to engineer the value add that countries could have to the group whereas previously it was purely an economic analysis and put it out there. |
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not linking to the strategy, not linking to the transactions that's in motion, what the risk presents, etc. |
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I try to transform the country's team to add more value. |
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07:33
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Come in, Debra. |
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She was fresh. |
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07:37
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She was new. |
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07:38
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She was inexperienced. |
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She was really not, you know, like the old god within country risk. |
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07:45
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And she embraced the new strategy from day one. |
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07:50
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I think what was important for me is when I look at people for leadership positions early on, I look at people who are quite interested to be a leader without a title. |
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08:02
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In other words, influence the people around them without having the title and dealing with the difficulties that come their way. |
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08:11
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So come around, Debra, from day one, she embraced the new strategy that was resisted by some of the older guard. |
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members, if I can put it like that. |
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08:22
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She spent an immense amount of time to try and influence the members around her to go along with the new strategy. |
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08:30
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And she actually managed to influence quite a few of the members positively around that. |
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08:36
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And that talks to me, I mean, she was a junior member coming into the team, you know, to achieve that talks to me to be a leader without a title, Number one. |
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08:47
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Number two, there was... |
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an incidence or two where she was subjected to quite negative feedback from the members in the team. |
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08:58
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I think a lot of people would have backed off from that. |
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Did she back off? |
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09:03
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No, she did not. |
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09:04
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Did she retaliate? |
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09:06
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No, she did not. |
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09:07
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She dealt with it in such a mature way that really impressed me on day one. |
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09:13
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So she de-escalated the situation from day one. |
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and gave the members who were basically attacking her personally, exposing herself to them and defend the situation and work for a better way forward for the team to be a more value-adding kind of thing. |
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09:33
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I will never forget that because she did much of that on her own. |
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09:38
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She did need some support, but it wasn't like she ran for the leadership. |
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09:43
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She stepped into that leadership position. |
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And eventually she did win them over. |
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And for me, that's a great thing. |
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09:50
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So for me, the two things that I can take away from Deborah's ethos is she's happy to be a leader without a title. |
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09:59
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She might not have the title, but she's happy to step into that leadership position. |
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10:04
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And I think that paid off well. |
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And secondly, the mature way that she dealt with very adverse feedback, controversial, hostile situations was very mature, not retaliating. |
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10:19
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And I think at the end of the day, the benefit that the country's team up until today, I think, got from that, her leadership style. |
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whether she had a title or not, is immense. |
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10:33
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Deborah, I'm not surprised that you got where you are now. |
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10:37
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You should be very proud of yourself and well done. |
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10:41
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I mean, I really admire you. |
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10:43
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Thank you. |
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10:44
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Oh, that's very sweet. |
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10:45
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That's so nice. |
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10:46
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It's amazing, eh? |
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10:48
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How do you feel listening to feedback like that about yourself? |
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10:51
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Really good. |
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10:52
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I mean, it is inspiring to listen to that again and realise I've gone through stuff that I can't even recall. |
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10:59
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in the past so it's it's wonderful to know that doing the right thing is it is important and other people sees it what would you have wanted someone to tell you at the beginning of your career what you wish you had known i think a very important thing is to focus on what you're busy with because the best way you can prepare you yourself for where you're going to next is by doing what you're doing right now as well as possible. |
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11:33
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You can think about opportunities that lies ahead in the future. |
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11:35
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That's, and we all do it the whole time. |
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11:37
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But I do think it's really, really important to focus, to be good at where you are right now and try to do that as best as possible. |
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11:47
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I mean, it's now taken for granted that you are excellent, not just good at what you do right now. |
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11:53
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And I've been told that you almost know, you know, what a good... |
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11:56
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deal is you can you can see things can you just take us through what guarantees a big deal or a good deal maybe through a risk analysis lens or just do you have a feeling about something or is it more clinical than that so in the country of space maybe to give a bit more background where i worked before we took big picture views for the bag we'd look at what the bank's portfolio across the continent looks like and where the risks lie in that portfolio. |
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12:35
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Good deals from a risk perspective looks different from a business perspective because you want a structure that you can see will remain in place for five years time and you're not going to get worried about where. |
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12:49
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I think the business team often looks at very key clients that they hope to attract for the bank. |
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12:55
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or continue banking. |
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12:58
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And often that causes some friction between us and the business team, but it's a healthy friction. |
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13:04
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How do you deal with that? |
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In as open and honest a way as possible. |
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So try to identify exactly what the concern is and communicate that as clearly as possible to the business team. |
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And then if you ever realize that... |
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13:24
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there is something that you were wrong about admit it and acknowledge it um yeah i would say that resonates for both a professional and personal career if you find out that you're wrong about something you just not easy though it isn't easy but i think it's absolutely it's important because you um what we're doing here is not about ourselves it's a transaction that you do that affects the group as a whole and if you are proud in the decision you made and refuse to overturn that. |
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it has an impact on something bigger than just yourself. |
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I know you work across the continent, as does the bank, and so you must pick up things both professionally and personally that you think you'd like to either explore more, work more on, or contribute to. |
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14:15
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So as I mentioned, I mean, I moved from this big picture role to where we now are. |
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14:20
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I think over the longer term, In my career, I definitely want to move back into that space where I have a bigger influence in the portfolio management of the bank and the strategy, the biggest strategy of the group, which is what we did in my country, Risk Time. |
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So that's something I'd definitely like to move back towards. |
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14:43
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And the importance of people seeing someone that looks like you in a leadership role what do you think that is yeah i mean that's it's it's very important. |
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14:54
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It's the Sia Khaleesi effect that we see in the rugby where young kids see a captain and it's it's sometimes people seeing somebody who looks like you in a leadership role but it's also people seeing somebody who's not like them in a leadership role what if someone is watching you now and saying you know i'd like to be like that how are they going to get their what they need to remember as they go on that journey i think it's part of it's going back to to what I said I tell my younger self as well. |
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15:31
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It's really focus on where you are now. |
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15:34
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You can achieve it, right? |
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But focus on where you now work hard on and be really good at what you're doing right now because that is what you, that is what will set you up for your next role. |
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15:49
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We were chatting off camera about our families and our kids and our upbringings as well. |
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And I'm just wondering how difficult is that? |
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15:58
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to balance? |
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15:59
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People don't like that question. |
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16:00
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They don't like it being asked, especially to women, but I think it's important because as you're successful in your professional life, there must be a balance or a give and take. |
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Tell me about that. |
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It's definitely not easy. |
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16:16
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I had to carefully consider whether I want a family or not because I also wanted a career. |
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16:23
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And now I've got two lovely boys which I'm very very happy to have. |
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16:28
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But it is a juggle, right? |
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16:33
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I've got people asking me quite often, and I prefer it if people talk fairly openly about how easy or difficult it is. |
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16:42
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I think the most important thing is that women should not try to achieve at work the same thing as men without having the same kind of support system at home, because it increases the stress that you need to deal with. |
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16:58
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it's not a level playing field right if i have to take full responsibility for everything at home and then try to build my career um i will burn out very very quickly um so some you need to find something my husband always reminds me that you can do almost anything but you can't do everything try aim for those things that you want to achieve and decide what it is that you need to compromise and that's kind of how I live my life at the moment. |
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17:32
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There are things that you miss out on sometimes and then there are other things that I really prioritise in my personal life that's just really important to me as well. |
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17:44
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What's the best thing about the work that you do? |
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17:46
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It's the people around me, right? |
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17:48
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It's people that makes work fun. |
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Working with diverse people, working with really, really intelligent people. |
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people. |
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17:59
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And then it's the nature of the work, the complexity around it, and learning new things the whole time. |
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18:05
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So part of this thing of balancing work-life is that I often don't have time to read as much as I would like to or to study further because right now in my life I'm just not in a space where I can do it. |
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18:21
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But at work it's amazing because I'm forced to learn new things the whole time. |
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18:27
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And that's what makes my life really, or my work life really, really enjoyable. |
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18:32
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It seems like there's an underlying purpose to the work as well. |
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18:37
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It's not just, okay, hi, we need to make money and there's how much we need to make and let's wrap it up. |
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18:43
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Just take me through a little bit of that. |
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18:45
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Yeah, I guess, well, specifically Standard Bank is different from other banks, given that we've got this deliberate strategy on the continent. |
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where we aim to drive Africa's growth. |
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18:59
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And knowing that you're part of this bigger purpose is really important. |
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19:05
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It does matter rather than just trying to do it for financial gain. |
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19:10
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I mean, the money is also important. |
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19:12
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You are a bank, but it's that underlying importance of the purpose and why you're doing it. |
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19:18
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Deborah, Rebecca? |
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19:19
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The executive equity risk at Stana Bank. |
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19:21
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Thank you so much for your time today. |
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19:23
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It was really good to get to know a little bit about you, your journey, your progression. |
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And really, thank you so much for the lessons that you shared. |
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19:30
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Thank you. |
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19:31
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Thank you for having me. |
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19:32
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It was lovely to be here. |
