How can you not focus on diversity?

Here, Credit Strategy’s editor Amber-Ainsley Pritchard (AAP) speaks with Ylva Oertengren (YO), chief operating officer at Simply Asset Finance, on discrimination, education and standing up for women.

AAP: How did you become COO of Simply Asset Finance?

YO: “It’s certainly not been a traditional linear career. I’m a lawyer by schooling and had previously been working in private practice, but felt that it was just not meaningful enough. I didn’t feel I was ever part of building something. Then, by coincidence, I was offered to interview for a financial services role which ended up with me embarking on a journey that took me across the Nordics and Asia.

“During this period of travel, I covered many different roles from legal and compliance to business development and operations and ended up as a chief operating officer and have been in those roles for the last 10 years in the UK.

“One of the reasons I like the COO role is that it’s a little bit of everything I’ve seen and done. I’ve worked in multiple jurisdictions doing financial services multiples of ways, so what I’m now able to do is build a business that works in the way I want to work. In the COO role, I run everything from technology to people and fit it all together with the customer in mind and that really excites me.

“In my current role as COO at Simply, it’s been a dream come true. I joined at its inception five years ago, and together with the co-founders I got to build the company from scratch. We have private equity backing which allowed us to just get on with it and we have now grown to a firm with around 120 people lending money into the SME sector in the UK.”

AAP: Was there a dedicated focus on diversity when building Simply?

YO: “I struggle with this questions because I can’t understand how you can not focus on diversity. The reason I say this is that with a startup company the value is in the sum of the ideas and the new thinking you put on the table. And for you to be able to have new ideas and fresh perspectives on existing problems and propositions in the market, you have to have people who contribute in different ways and are able to provide that new way of thinking. For me to do that, having a diverse group of people to rely on expands. This gives me a broader spectrum to source ideas from and therefore I’m more likely to come up with something good, it’s that simple.

“There’s such a strong connection between diversity and innovation, that it’s imperative to go for diversity. So the answer is yes. It has been a focus from the very beginning. Then again, personally, my great-grandmother fought for the women’s right to vote so it’s a natural part of who I am.”

AAP: Have you faced any discrimination in your roles in financial services?

YO: “Yes, of course. Financial services is not isolated from overall society. I’ve seen it and felt it. There may be more women in the sector now, but you still see the same sort of behaviour and I’m not sure why. It’s certainly not changing quick enough and I wonder why that is. Why do these behaviours persist? We all know they are detrimental to business outcomes and are discriminatory to minority groups, including women. So why do people do it?”

AAP: Is it a lack of education?

YO: “To a certain extent and the lack of education starts at a very young level. Society has a tendency to enforce stereotypes rather than challenge them.”

AAP: How can financial services change to improve and promote diversity?

YO: “There’s a lot that companies can do, but the thing that has made the difference in my career is that at every moment where I have been told to ‘back off’, ‘take a backseat’ or ‘turn it down’, is that I’ve had someone standing up for me and believing in me and pushing me to say ‘get back up again, let’s prove them wrong’. That’s meant more to me than anything.

“Companies can have a perfect diversity and inclusion agenda on paper, but unless you have advocates, people who are passionate about it, and support women and others who need it, then it won’t mean much.

“Having that support network across the industry can speed up the change. I for one am offering out my support to be that person for others.”

To read the magazine click here.

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