Supporting female founders in Northamptonshire to achieve their dreams
Kerry Reynolds, Area Director for Metro Bank, is co-founder of Women in Northampton Unite, a forum for female founders. Kerry explains her route into banking, her passion to help female-led businesses and the importance of business networks for women.
I'm one of those rare people that always wanted to go into banking.
I did my work experience at Barclays on the Wellingborough Road.
Then, at the age of 16, I joined NatWest on the Drapery. I got onto NatWest's management programme and worked for them for 28 years.
I'd been approached by Metro Bank and I thought they sounded great. They were growing and opening new stores all the time, and I wanted to give it a go.
I've loved every minute at Metro Bank, including opening the Northampton store and now cover a number of stores including our newest in Leicester.
My passion to support female business owners started pre-Covid.
There was some work done by NatWest's CEO Alison Rose, on behalf of the Government, to look at female-led businesses and understand why we haven't got as many of them as we should. She published her findings in The Rose Review and part of the result of that has been the Investing in Women Code, of which Metro Bank is a founder signatory.
I have two daughters so I've got really into supporting females from a personal perspective. Banking starts off evenly split between male and female, but at some more senior levels the balance isn’t there – something that the whole sector is working hard to address.
I was asked by Metro Bank to look at The Rose Review and find out how we could take it forward. What struck me when I looked at the data is that women don't grow businesses at the same rate as men - but if they did, it could add £250billion to the economy. That would be massive.
It made me think there's so much more we can do. When I started to build networks and hear women's stories resonate with others, it began to feel really powerful.
At first, I sat down with Kirsty Simmonds from DFA Law and Paula Carter from Fortus to try to start something together. That conversation has resulted in Women in Northampton Unite, a group that gives opportunities for women to connect with like-minded female leaders.
A lot of females start up a business working from home, they fit it around care of their children, parents or other caring responsibilities and they're happy because that's all they want to do. But there are other female-led businesses out there which are growing and the women leading these businesses don't have the time to network or build contacts because they're so busy.
The idea is to bring those women together. We were mindful about who we'd invite - they have to have a business, they have to employ people, they have to turnover a reasonable amount and that's it. It isn't for selling and we don't push what we do - we just want women to hear stories that could help them realise what they want to achieve.
We've had really good feedback on our events. Tina Warner-Keogh from Warners Gin spoke at our second event. This is a Northamptonshire business and Tina's presentation covered their journey and what they've overcome. She was excellent.
Afterwards it became clear that everyone in the audience had previously thought because they're a big brand that sells to Waitrose and Tesco that everything must have been rosy all along. They didn't realise even successful companies would face big challenges. A common phrase I hear from women when they hear stories like Tina's is: "I thought it was only me".
Generally, women tend to be more risk-averse and can find it difficult to discover role models in the area of business they're interested in. Even in this day and age, women typically have more caring responsibilities and that's especially true after Covid. Women tend to support women more, but it can be difficult if the investors aren't women. There is still some bias out there from people looking to invest in growing businesses.
My main advice would be: don't be afraid to ask. You're not expected to know it all. Find people who have already done something similar to what you're trying to achieve and ask them how they did it. Admittedly, finding the networks can be the difficult thing but that's what we're trying to help with.
Sometimes we get people saying they have a colleague who'd like to come but they're a bit nervous, so we look out for them and try to make that experience easier for them.
We're also keen to help encourage the next generation of female-led businesses. At Metro Bank we use the apprenticeship programme and we have a levy we can use to support other businesses. I presented an apprenticeship opportunity at our last event and we're now talking to four female-led businesses in Northamptonshire to push that forward.
If we can do things that make a difference locally and help our economy, we will do that wherever and whenever we can.
Want to know more?
To find out more, connect with Kerry on LinkedIn.