In this interview Bríd Horan spoke to Alison Cowzer about:

• Being unaware of what an actuary was but choosing the career instead of being a “poor student” after seeing a job advertisement shortly after receiving her Leaving Cert results.
• Spending 17 years with the ESB and becoming its deputy CEO.
• Co-Founding the 30% Club and Co-Chairing Better Balance for Business.
• Learning the most in her years after becoming a mother and taking that time to grow personally: getting more involved in the community and staying current by becoming a student examiner.
• The taboo around mentioning being a mother in an interview
• Millennials, Centennials and Baby Boomers working together to keep staying up to date with technology in business.
• Financial Resilience and the pensions cliff.
• Working on the Cassells Group giving recommendations on higher education funding.
• What makes a good non-exec and staying outside of the goldfish bowl.
• Aims to work with the underprivileged part of society.

Alison Cowzer (AC): My guest today is Bríd Horan Bríd has had a stellar career across a number of different sectors in the business world in Ireland. Started life as an actuary, she has worked with Irish Life, was deputy CEO of ESB, co-founder of the 30% Club and is also co-chair of Better Balance for Business. 

You’re very welcome Bríd. 

Bríd Horan (BH): Thanks Alison. Delighted to be here. 

AC: So, I’ve just read out quite a broad list of career highlights there and I’m sure I haven’t even covered everything Bríd. You started life as an actuary, you must be really good at sums?

BH: Well I started life as a trainee actuary. I suppose I started life before that obviously, but came to Dublin a lifetime ago, literally, to train as an actuary in Irish Life. Not very far from where we are today. And I got a really good training there. Went on from that to do various things, including having two sons. Took time out while they were very small and then came back into the world of work – actually into KPMG, where very soon I was running the actuarial practice in KPMG and it was from there I moved to ESB and spent 17 years longer than I ever expected to spend in the ESB. But it was a really interesting time to be there. And people laugh when I say this but almost five years ago now I retired from ESB when I felt I was still young enough to do other things even though I was then 61. But happily I’ve managed to do other things since then and continue to have a very interesting and fulfilling life.

AC: There probably weren’t that many young women at the time that you were in secondary school, dreaming of being an actuary. 

BH: And I wasn’t one either. Until the day I got my Leaving Cert results I had never heard of an actuary and on that day the Irish Press, as it was then, had an ad. And actually it wasn’t from Irish Life, it was from New Ireland, looking for trainee actuaries and for people with a certain result in their Leaving Cert in maths, offering a job payment. So that presented a wonderful alternative to me rather than going to university and being a poor student. I thought that sounds great. I had no idea what an actuary was. I had to discover that later.

AC: The reality of being an actuary, how did you experience that?

BH: Actually, it was great because it did involve studying as well as working. But I was very lucky in that when I went into Irish Life they actually placed me in the new business department which wasn’t a very technical department. It was a very front end dealing with customers, dealing with underwriting which I found fascinating. Life underwriting is an interesting business, and just learning the basics of the business, learning how to deal with difficult customers at reception on occasion when they weren’t very happy for one reason or another, was a great start.

And then as I progressed, the following year when I had passed an exam or two they put me in a technical department and it was a very interesting place at the time. 

AC: Again going back to that environment that you were working in in the actuarial field, I presume it was pretty much male dominated at that point?

BH: I think that’s a slight understatement, if anything. I discovered a few months in that I was the only girl in Ireland that actually was studying in that field and there hadn’t been any women before. There had obviously been women in the UK, but not here.

And looking back, I sometimes wonder if I’d known that would I have actually had the temerity to go down that route.

“The work in the 30% Club came about obviously at a much later stage, just as I was about to retire from ESB actually.”

AC: When you were in, you were in.

BH: I was in. I was in and I saw the guys and I saw I was as good as the guys, so I kept on going. 

AC: That kind of trailblazer mentality, is that something that has informed the work that you’re doing particularly with the 30% Club? 

BH: I wouldn’t describe myself as a trailblazer because trailblazers know they’re blazing a trail. I was going along innocently enjoying the benefits of having a paid job and getting a good training. But that said, I suppose I haven’t been afraid to actually take on the first and I really look forward to a time when there won’t be so many first this or that – where women are the first of something.

But the work in the 30% Club came about obviously at a much later stage, just as I was about to retire from ESB actually. I was approached by Carol Andrews who had the idea that we should start the 30% Club here in Ireland. It had been in operation in the UK for a number of years at that point. And my initial reaction was that I wasn’t entirely sure we had been grappling with gender balance in ESB. But I had really believed that that was because it was more difficult in a utility where engineering is a core skill and where a lot of our management cadre came up the engineering ranks and unfortunately STEM, and we might talk more about that, STEM: science, technology, engineering and maths still are areas where girls are underrepresented.

So, I had presumed that some of the difficulties that we had an ESB, and was right, where to do with that kind of specialty. When Carol spoke to me about it first and I looked at the data on a broader basis I was really shocked to find that there was such an imbalance in leadership in so many sectors. And I suppose the one that shocked me most, not surprising given that I started there, was financial services. I find it really shocking that at that stage in late 2014, and we’re still in the same stage now that somewhat improved in 2019, that the leadership in financial services is still so male dominated.

AC: And yet we have, I think is it, three CEOs at the moment of our main banks are female? So something’s changing

BH: Something is changing. Absolutely. And actually it’s an interesting point you make, because we see the small number of women very visibly. So we notice a chief executive who is female, whether that’s Francesca McDonagh and Bank of Ireland or Anne O’Leary in Vodafone, they stand out a lot. But actually, when you look at the numbers overall in Ireland, the CSO did some research during the year and less than one in 10 CEOs are female right across business in Ireland. That’s a very low percentage.

“Businesses are facing really big challenges. It’s in their interest to have leadership that is representative of society”

AC: The 30% Club and you’re co-chair also of Better Balance for Business, is that a mission for you? That whole area of gender balance?

BH: I think mission is a very big word. It’s certainly a passion. In my teens, I was convinced and I still am that equal participation and equal rights for women is an absolute issue of justice and equality. And I remain convinced of that. But as I matured and as I went through the business world and as I’ve just understood society more, I am now a passionate believer that actually gender balance in all forms of leadership and decision making is not just about fairness. It’s actually about using the talent and the wisdom and the passion and energy of all our people. So, 50 per cent of the population is female. It is only sensible to acknowledge that if we’re going to develop the best solutions, perform to the best of our ability, then we should be using all the talent. And that includes female talent. And where I’ve seen the impact of having gender balance, whether it’s in a project team, or in a leadership team, or in any group, the thinking that goes on, the process that is followed, the outcome is better when it’s gender balanced. And I say that by the way in respect of both genders.

So, you know I think an all-female team is less than ideal as well. We have different perspectives, we’ve different backgrounds and we have different talents to bring. Let’s use them all. We have very complex problems to deal with as a society. Businesses are facing really big challenges. It’s in their interest to have leadership that is representative of society, of their customers. They’ll understand their market better. There’s lots of research that shows financial performance improves, innovation improves, and risk management improves, which is really important.

AC: And that whole concept of better balance, I mean most businesses would probably adhere to the principle but how do they operationally start to change what may be a very imbalanced scenario to start with?

BH: Well, I think the first thing is to actually look at your scenario. And we would be very encouraging of companies to actually look at the data. So, in Balance for a Better Business a starting point for us has been to actually look at what the situation is. And we’ve published our first report focusing on the boards of listed companies, we’re now extending that in our second report which would be due out in the coming month, to their leadership teams but also to private companies which are really important in the Irish economy. And next year we’ll be looking at multinationals. 

“So, I think it’s understanding where you are, understanding what you can do and how you can do it. So for executive level, it can be more complex.”

So, the starting point is always to understand where you are. And then from that to actually understand what are the barriers. Why are we where we are? And what are the inhibitors? And then thinking about well what can we do to change. And I’ve seen companies and organisations do different things. I’ve seen one organisation expand their leadership team to say ‘okay we have a really good leadership team but we also have a number of other functions that are not represented here and that are led by women.’ And bringing those women onto the leadership team..

AC: To avoid that concept of having to dislodge an incumbent for example.

BH: Exactly. And I’ve had feedback from that particular organisation saying that the leadership team is absolutely delighted with the expanded room that they now have. And with those new perspectives. And the organisation is delighted because they look up and they see a leadership team that is more representative of the organisation. Others have done it in different ways. So, I think it’s understanding where you are, understanding what you can do and how you can do it. So for executive level, it can be more complex. It’s definitely about building and strengthening the pipeline as well to make sure that you’re actually developing the talent and giving full exposure to the talent.

So, the 30% Club has a number of initiatives in that respect including executive education scholarships to encourage women to think about executive education but also mentoring. So, there’s a very dynamic and very successful across company mentoring program run by the 30% Club with the Irish Management Institute. And, we’ve again terrific feedback from that. 

“I would encourage women who do take time out of the workforce to actually avail of the time to grow in some way.”

AC: One of the things that I find interesting in looking at your career is that like many women you took some time out to have your family. But came back into the workforce and continued to succeed with a different company. Not many women managed to achieve that level of success having taken a number of years out. How did it work for you?

BH: I think the first thing to say is probably there are more than we think. Because women don’t tend to talk about it a lot.

AC: The gap in the CV is something that might be masked a little bit.

BH: A gap in the CV indeed. I think one of the things for me was that during that time, that gap in the CV, I actually got involved in the community. And, with a number of other women, built initially a mother and toddler group and later a women’s community group. And I think that helped me to maintain my confidence. I also stayed connected with the actuarial profession.

I was very fortunate in that the training system at the time was really by correspondence course essentially.

“I thought I had absolutely blown it. But it was the truth.”

AC: So, you kept up?

BH: Well actually what I did was I became a tutor and helped students as they were going through and also became an examiner marking exam papers. I was just very fortunate that I was asked to do that. But it helped that when I went back into the world of work, I was current and was visibly current.

Things weren’t changing as fast at the time although technology was kind of taking off pretty rapidly. So, there was quite a lot of change in technology when I came back in 1990. But I would encourage women who do take time out of the workforce to actually avail of the time to grow in some way. It need not necessarily be related to their profession, but to grow personally as well. And by the way, the final bit of that is that I grew enormously personally because of my mothering. I learned more about myself from actually mothering two sons than I think I had really learned in the previous 30 plus years.

AC: And yet we don’t put that on our CVs. 

BH: No. But interestingly, and I smiled to myself when I think about this, at the final interview that I had with KPMG was with the managing partner for consulting at the time and I remember the last question he asked me which was: Where I had learned most in my career? And my answer was: “Well actually in the last four and a half years.” And I came out of the interview kicking myself. 

AC: Did you think you’d blown it? 

BH: I thought I had absolutely blown it. But it was the truth.

“So, as social media was developing for example for a long established company like ESB there would have been a danger that we might lose touch with that.”

AC: The truth obviously wins in the end. 

You’ve mentioned tech and the importance of tech and STEM. You’ve worked with a number of companies that tech has been to the fore in terms of the output, the operations. Like the ESB has just completely transformed itself over the last number of years. For the rest of us who work in businesses that aren’t necessarily as tech led or as engineering led, how do we keep up? What are the signposts that we need to look to, to really feel like we’re on track?

BH: That’s a very big question Alison. And I wouldn’t claim to have the expertise. I think it’s as big a challenge for the likes of ESB as it is for anybody else. Because for an organisation like ESB, there is a tendency that you can keep up with the developments in electricity generation and in electricity transmission and telecommunications, all of that. The danger sometimes is that you might not keep up with the other forms of technology. So, as social media was developing for example for a long established company like ESB there would have been a danger that we might lose touch with that.

And I was responsible for the retail, the customer end of ESB at the time when that was really kind of taking off. So, one of the things that we had to do and that I had to do as a leader was to trust in the younger people within the organisation who were saying things to me like we need to be on boards.ie. I don’t even know if boards.ie are still a thing, but it was very much a thing at that time. And then gradually, we needed to be on Twitter and we needed to go on Facebook. And certainly, on my own start on Twitter was because my business was actually starting to use Twitter to engage with customers and to engage with the market.

So, it’s actually listening to the people within your own business. That know what’s going on and just being aware and trusting. We went on to use those channels very effectively. So, we’ve all a lot to learn. There’s a thing now that’s called reverse mentoring. Which is where younger people mentor more senior people. And certainly, I’ve heard of a number of organisations that do this particularly in respect of tech. We’re all learning. If you’ve got teenage or young adult children, you learn from them. The number of people who will tell you that they’re learning at home how to manage their complicated television package or whatever, the same thing can apply in work.

And we’re now at a stage where in the workplace we’ve been talking about Millennials now in the last 10 years, about Millennials coming into the workforce. We’re now at a stage where the Centennials are coming into the workforce. And again, they’re bringing a different tech dimension. So, it’s actually valuing the voices of all those people. Because that’s our customer base. It’s made up of Centennials and Millennials and Gen Xers and even Baby Boomers like myself.

“And I’ll happily admit that I’m one of the people you know born and a child before television was in Ireland. So, you know I do remember Gay Byrne with the very first Late Late Show.”

AC: I think we’ve almost got too many labels at the stage in terms of how we label ourselves.

BH: But they are very interesting.

AC: They’re used very often not just as a label but almost as in a derogatory sense I think to certain groups. Which probably isn’t fair.

BH: Absolutely not fair. But I think the thing that people miss about those labels is that actually they go right back to tech. That actually, the difference between a Baby Boomer and a Gen Xers and a Millennial and a Centennial is actually the tech that we grew up with.

So, we’ve all heard the term ‘digital natives.’ So, each of those four age groups are native to a different form of technology. So, we started out and we grew up with a certain form of technology. And I’ll happily admit that I’m one of the people you know born and a child before television was in Ireland. So, you know I do remember Gay Byrne with the very first Late Late Show.

But those things are very formative in terms of how we communicate and how we take information, how we relate to other people. And they’re very formative in terms of how we want to do our work as well. So, employments and employers need to adjust and to make sure that they’re providing options and opportunities for people to work in the way that suits how they’ve grown up and how they can do business. And also, then relate to your customers in the way that they’re comfortable doing business.

“People will have to adapt and take on new skills.”

AC: So, from one end of the age spectrum to the other, and you’re at your time with Irish Life and your experience and pensions. I mean, for most people pensions are desperately what they try to avoid discussing and eventually get harassed into maybe starting a pension. By either their colleagues, or their boss, or their accountant or whatever. But I suppose pensions has always been maybe a boring area, but it’s very dramatic now when we consider the pensions cliff that the country is looking at. I suppose, how do we start preparing for everybody’s pension? Be it on a personal basis or on a fiscal basis?

“I think employers really do need to take this more seriously. Because there will come a time when an individual, for reasons of choice or ability and health, won’t be able to continue to work and they need to be able to actually afford to retire.”

BH: I think we probably need to start the conversation in a slightly different way. I like the phrase ‘financial resilience.’ We talk a lot about personal resilience nowadays and that’s really important. I think we need to start thinking about our financial resilience. And I think if you start the conversation there, that you can think about it in a way that thinks about your ambitions whether it’s to own a house, or a flash car, or to have a good lifestyle when you can no longer actually be a paid employment. So, I think if you start to think about it in that way you might change the discussion.

I think employers really do need to take this more seriously. Because there will come a time when an individual, for reasons of choice or ability and health, won’t be able to continue to work and they need to be able to actually afford to retire.

I would like to look forward to a future where that was not such a cliff personally for individuals. Where we maybe had a more flexible model of people downsizing their employment, downsizing their income and gradually transitioning on to what we’ll use the word ‘pension.’ But really, it’s a pot of money from which you have to fund that period of life when you can’t or you don’t want to continue to earn. And I think if you changed the conversation in that way it becomes more manageable.

The other challenge is to perhaps make it more automatic. So, there is a policy that the government are now adopting of auto enrolment. So that if you’re in a job you would be auto enrolled into a savings arrangement for your future. I think that really is the future. And people can opt out of it but inertia steps in. So, expecting people at 18 or 25 to make the big decision and to start contributing to their pension. I think if you reverse it and if you make the decision for them and expect them to opt out or not then you would get much better outcomes and there’s lots of research that shows that’s the case. 

My first week in Irish Life, I was signed up into the pension scheme. I didn’t have to make a big decision about it. If they had offered me the choice to opt out, I don’t know what I would have done but I suspect in a lot of cases we don’t opt out. So those directions of travel are good.

I think we all need to think about our future in a different way. We’re all having to take ownership now in ways that we didn’t before. So it’s important that right through the education system and in the early stages of work that people are supported. As I say, to think about that financial resilience and what their ambitions are for themselves.

“It’s a cliché almost at this stage to say that people will have multiple careers. But that’s the reality as businesses change.”

AC: You mentioned education, I see you served on the Expert Group on future funding for higher education back in 2014. I’ve done my research. But looking back, obviously five years ago, have we done what was recommended in terms of funding and education investment and what’s required?

BH: This is an unexpected change of direction. Some of it has been done to be fair. So, the Cassells Group, as it was referred to, the official title was an expert group on the funding of higher education. And I learned a lot about higher education in that process. I was kind of an external independent view on it. The key thing that we recommended was that it was really important that we as a country invest more in higher education if we we’re to continue to achieve the level of ambition we have as a country. But we also need to connect more between father education and higher education as well. And to realise that not all young people are best served by going on to higher education. There are a lot of other opportunities and I think it’s really exciting to see the development of new models of apprenticeship and so on. But our recommendations in relation to funding were that we do need to have a higher level of funding and that we identified sources from which that could come.

The very obvious one is increased funding from the State. And there has been some commitment and we would like to see more. Certainly, personally I would like to see more because I think the system is still quite underfunded. And the second option was that employers should actually make a contribution in the same way as they have been doing towards training. And that has been implemented. It’s being implemented on a phased basis and I think that’s a very positive development. And the final one was the question of what should happen around fees. And what we said was that if student fees had to increase then there should be a system of student loans as well.

But we were very conscious as a group that actually there’s two sides to the funding of higher education. One is the cost of the actual higher education institution itself. The other is the cost to the individual and to their family of taking part in higher education and that remains a significant challenge. People talk about the high costs of education. There is a difference between people who live near an institution and people who don’t. And we need to be very conscious of that. I think the future, where opportunities will be available for distance learning is also very positive. And the final thing I would say in relation to that is that when we’re thinking about higher education and further education, we need to think about it as a lifelong journey.

Again, in the same way as the financial resilience, we need to have a skills resilience. It’s a cliché almost at this stage to say that people will have multiple careers. But that’s the reality as businesses change. People will have to adapt and take on new skills and therefore they will need to be trained and retrained and educated and re-educated.

“The real value is in having non-executives standing outside of the world of the organisation and having that external perspective.”

AC: And obviously you’re a prime example of that. You’ve retired in terms of the day to day but you’ve taken up quite a number of non-exec positions across quite a number of different organisations. Some in the commercial space and some in the NGO space. And I think there’s probably a lot of people considering doing the same thing or are seeking non exec board members. What do you think makes an effective non-executive individual? I know you’ve been across a whole lot of different diverse organisations but what is it that a non-exec brings that that is valuable?

BH: Their professional background and experience is really important. And that’s kind of a given you need to have a level of knowledge and expertise across some area of business life or of an NGO life. But the most important I think is the real differentiator is the personal qualities. And it’s that balance between a challenge and an appropriate level of governance and challenge to the management of an organisation and support. Which is actually around helping to find solutions rather than always being in the critical mode. And I think that’s what the real value is in having non-executives standing outside of the world of the organisation and having that external perspective.

I recall on one occasion at a non-executive director in ESB making the comments, I think he’d been on the board about four years, and he said he sometimes wondered and worried whether or not he was now inside the goldfish bowl instead of outside of it. It was a strange analogy.

“There’s an inevitable imbalance in information between the executive and the management and the non-executives. And to actually work well you need to have a really high functioning transferability of that information.”

AC: How do you avoid that conflict?

BH: It is interesting and one of the reasons one of the things that has been done is to introduce term limits. So, to be described as a non-executive director, now there are limitations in terms of time. But I think it’s a mindset more than actually a limitation of time. To actually realise that you’re not there to run the day to day operations of the company, you’re there to actually think strategically. First of all, as indeed the management are trying to do as well. But you have the benefit of not being buried in the detail.

AC: Not having the doing bit and the meddling piece.

BH: Absolutely I mean I think a non-executive director who seeks to meddle in the internal functions of the business is no help. On the other hand, you do need to know enough about the internal functioning of the business to know that the people who are doing it are doing it well and that’s always a balance. There’s an inevitable imbalance in information between the executive and the management and the non-executives. And to actually work well you need to have a really high functioning transferability of that information, so you get enough information. But not so much that you’re just buried in it. Enough so you know what are the key elements that you need to know.

And that’s a matter of judgment and it’s also a matter of trust. So, if you want to be a non-executive the important thing is knowing that you have good executive and management as well.

“In terms of what I do next myself, I have to confess Alison that I rarely have had a plan. That things come along – I look at them and if I find them interesting and challenging I take them on.”

AC: So, in terms of career development what’s next? You spoke earlier about the continuing career, the portfolio career and the non-exec work that you’re doing. What challenges are left?

BH: Well the first challenge is to make sure that I’m successful in what I do. So, I chair Nephin Energy. I’m on the board of the PM Group. Those are really great organisations I chair the trustees of the Bank of Ireland pension fund and the PM Group pension funds. There are really significant challenges in all of those roles. So, I’m continuing to learn in each of those roles about those businesses and to make sure that I can contribute. So, I continue to take part in continuing professional development. 

And in terms of the future, my priority in terms of the non-commercial activities is around Balance for Better Business. I really passionately believe that we can make more progress. We have seen since we were launched that the percentage of women on boards has increased. We are looking, as I said, now at the executive level as well. So, we need to see that percentage continue to increase. Disappointingly on the Irish stock exchange, Euronext Dublin, there are still a number of listed companies that have no women on their board. So, there’s still lots to do. Lots of convincing to do.

In terms of what I do next myself, I have to confess Alison that I rarely have had a plan. That things come along – I look at them and if I find them interesting and challenging I take them on. I would like to think that at some stage in my future I would have time to devote to the genuinely underprivileged part of society. And I think when we operate in business and you talk about people aspiring to be non-executive directors, I’m very conscious that that’s a very small percentage of the actual workforce. That for well over 99 per cent of workers who are thinking about their future after retirement from full time work, non-executive roles are not on their agenda. But I think there’s an interesting challenge there in terms of how we take advantage of the improved longevity that people definitely can look forward to on average and that we continue to engage people and to have really interesting lives and fulfilled lives for them. That’s an area that I’m still very conscious of.

AC: And that’s a really good note to end on. Thank you very much Bríd