Jen Tippin

I’ve actually got quite an unusual background. I haven’t always worked in banking. In fact, I started out my career in the airline business and then moved into engineering and the industrial sector before joining banking. But I suppose my career has been characterised by two things- change and also variety. I’m lucky that I’ve worked in many different types of roles, from functional roles to frontline customer coverage type roles to leading major change and transformation across multiple sectors.

And for the last 15 years, I’ve worked in banking, and I’ve pretty much worked my way around most roles in a bank which gives me quite a unique and broad perspective which I’m very grateful for. I sit on a few other boards as well which gives me a lot of different insight and perspectives. I sit on a FTSE250 board, Morgan Sindall, which is a construction regeneration and housing business. And then I also sit on a public sector board of HMRC, which is a vast organisation and very different to the business that I work in. That gives me a lot to think about and a lot to learn.

So I’m lucky that I have a career that’s been very varied and diverse across multiple areas. Different businesses, different sectors, different industries, and now able to bring some of the perspectives from working in different boards as well to my executive career.

That’s a great question. I think that there’s been very deep change amongst our customers and their needs over the last decade or so in banking. Things have changed beyond belief.
We have 19 million customers, we have over 10 million of our customers are digital active users, 9 million mobile customers. And actually, two thirds of our retail customers only ever transact with us using their phone or other digital channels.

So there’s been a lot of change and some of that was driven by the pandemic when people interacted with their bank in a different way. But some of it has just been the improvement in those digital experiences for customers, the convenience of that. What we’ve been trying to do is marry the brilliance of technology, the brilliance of those digital experiences with also the warmth and intimacy of a bank that’s been around several hundred years and has a relationship focus. So that digital transformation I think brings about huge new opportunities for men and women, for colleagues of all different skills and backgrounds to really put those skills to best use.