“If there’s anything that the current situation has taught us, it’s to take advantage of every opportunity, because the world could change tomorrow. Be opportunistic; don’t be afraid to go after what you want.” — Valentina Kristensen, Director of Growth and Communications at OakNorth, speaks to us about developing a career as a business leader.
As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some industry leaders to share the secrets of their success.
This week, we had a great conversation with Valentina Kristensen at OakNorth, who began her career at communications consultancy, Lansons. Valentina later joined Dragon Advisory as an Associate where one of her clients was OakNorth. After a secondment with the business, she joined full-time in July 2016 as OakNorth’s comms lead.
Can you tell us how you started your career and how it developed into a leadership role?
The possibility of a career in financial services communications first came to mind while I was studying for a degree in Business Management back in 2008—it was the perfect storm for change and opportunity in the sector with the launch of the iPhone and the financial crisis.
At that point, trust in the big banks was all but destroyed, and there was a huge effort to try and bring new players into the financial sector to overthrow their market dominance. I could see that these new players had an opportunity to take advantage of this new dawn of technology and revolutionise banking, but would need to work hard to encourage consumers to put their trust in them first. I decided that I wanted to manage communications for businesses that had had their reputations affected by these developments, and take advantage of the opportunity to potentially help new brands launch and rebuild public faith in the sector. Either way, finance promised to be an interesting sector to work in amidst all the upheaval going on.
My goal was to join a financial services communications agency, because I knew an agency offered the diversity of experience I wanted to have starting out. I’d heard it was a great way to learn from a number of other communications professionals, build up a broad portfolio of clients, and get a wide range of experience in launches, research, and other key areas of the role.
I started my career at an agency called Lansons, which had done everything from launching completely new brands—including Metro Bank, who were one of my first clients and the first new bank in the UK in 150 years—all the way through to serving some of the largest financial services companies in the world. I got the opportunity to work with established players like Vanguard, JP Morgan, and BlackRock, but also to see the launch of a number of newer fintechs such as Nutmeg.
My first encounter with OakNorth was in the summer of 2015 – the business had recently been granted a banking license with restrictions and I was working consultancy-side for them at Dragon. What really resonated with me was the mission and vision for the company laid out by its founders, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman. They explained how in 2006, they’d been looking for debt finance to grow their financial research outsourcing business, Copal Amba, but found that none of the banks would give them a loan unless they could secure it against a property – even though they were profitable, had strong cash flow and a great list of retained clients. Back then, there were no alternative sources of debt finance such as crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending which exist today, so when Rishi and Joel sold that business in 2014 to Moody’s Corporation, they set out to fix the problem of lending to scale-ups.
My mother is an entrepreneur, so I had seen first-hand the challenges of starting a business as I was growing up. I loved the fact that Rishi and Joel were trying to create a new bank for entrepreneurs who were seeking to grow their businesses even though they themselves weren’t bankers.
About five years into my career, I was seconded to work at OakNorth in-house. By that point, I’d had the chance to build up a broad range of experience with different types of businesses, and I knew I really wanted to work for a start-up. I was keen to build a Communications function from scratch and be part of the team that helped to build a brand from the ground up, and OakNorth could offer me exactly that opportunity.
Culturally, it was a very good fit, so not long into the secondment, Rishi, Joel, and I had a conversation about me joining full-time. I initiated that conversation which of course meant taking a risk, but creating that opportunity to sit down with them and give the elevator pitch was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I’ve been at OakNorth full-time for four years now, and I’ve had the chance to build a brilliant team and help grow the brand from the ground up just as I always aspired to. It’s been a really exciting opportunity.
How would you say your leadership has developed throughout your time at OakNorth? What skills have you developed as part of that?
I’ve been extremely lucky to have real champions in Rishi and Joel, who have given me opportunities to develop and provide me with inspiration for my own leadership. For example, there have been multiple times over the years when Rishi has been approached for an interview and suggested I do it instead because I know the talking points and he’s of course limited for time. In the beginning, I was very nervous, because I hadn’t really done public speaking, but my confidence built up over time. That has led to some amazing opportunities, but also upped my confidence to speak capably and with conviction in meetings with key stakeholders.
Even though we’ve grown significantly, Rishi and Joel still see Communications as an incredibly important function and something that they are both involved in week-to-week. The fact that the board is thinking about our reputation and communication—particularly given how important internal communication is at the moment—is key.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that are most prevalent for you as a leader at the moment, either within the Communications or Finance sectors or OakNorth specifically?
I think when you’re growing as quickly as we are, there will inevitably be challenges that you couldn’t have anticipated – for example, not everyone is going to have the same type of experience now as in the beginning. Since I’ve been with the company, we’ve grown from a team with 40-50 employees to almost 900, so I have many colleagues I’ve never met or even spoken to. There are people who I could pass in the street without knowing they work at OakNorth, which is very strange, but also testament to the exceptional growth we’ve had as a business.
We’re also international now (licensing our credit science Platform), and work with dozens of banks of varying sizes around the world, so that means that we have colleagues in lots of different markets who again, I may never meet. A key thing has been to ensure our values remain consistent throughout all that development and with every hire. We have added a few more values over time, but they’re largely still the same as when we started.
We’re in quite a unique position as a business in that outside of the UK, we partner and collaborate with banks by licensing our technology to them, but within the UK, we compete with banks as a lender. That creates an interesting communication challenge as the audience you’re targeting will vary depending on which market you’re in – in the UK, the audience is growth businesses who are looking for loans, and outside of the UK, it’s banks who want to join us in improving the commercial lending sector.
I think COVID-19 has been beneficial in that it has brought flexible working, mental health and the importance of internal communications to the top of the global corporate agenda. As an organisation, we have an all-parties call every Wednesday where we give an update on what’s happening within the business and allow people to voice their concerns via an anonymous virtual question box that our founders respond to during those calls. In addition, I have a daily call with my team to check in and run through our key actions for the day as a way to try and fill the gap left by being unable to sit together and learn from each other. Our leaders have found ways to ensure there’s a social element to interaction between teams as well, such as virtual meet-ups and quizzes. It’s important to us to find the balance between making sure work gets done and remembering that we’re all humans missing our social interactions.
Particularly within Communications, our world is designed to be digital—we don’t envisage going back to the office full-time for the remainder of the year, but in certain markets, it is open for a limited number of people to return with the proper safety measures in place should they choose to.
In terms of my leadership specifically, I’m very fortunate that my team is extremely capable and very proactive, so my biggest challenge is in thinking creatively about how best to navigate the current situation and get the word out about what we’re doing and how we can help. We’re also uniquely placed to offer insight on how our clients themselves are getting on during this period, giving them the kind of PR opportunities you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a bank.
What career advice would you offer to someone looking to either develop a leadership role or develop their career in the way that you have?
I highly recommend undertaking a secondment if you get a chance to do so. It’s a great way to establish whether a particular company might be a place you want to work without having to fully commit in terms of signing a contract and leaving your existing role first. However, it’s important to take a chance sometimes. During my secondment, I could see an amazing opportunity to work in an organisation I really believed in and with people who are at the top of their game, so rather than focusing on the reasons why I might not be able to do the job, I focused on whether I wanted to give it a go and all the reasons I could.
Although getting out of your comfort zone is often nerve-wracking, the more you do it, the less scary it is and the harder you will push yourself to overcome your fears in the future. If there’s anything that the current situation has taught us, it’s to take advantage of every opportunity, because the world could change tomorrow. Be opportunistic; don’t be afraid to go after what you want.
If you’re just starting your career, I think it’s also important to think at length about whether or not you want to join an established company who are going to have all their processes already in place. In that situation, there’s very little scope to make them your own and shape them, because their approach is less flexible and more-risk averse. Scale-ups like OakNorth can be ideal for those who are looking for more flexibility but who also want the security of a profitable business, whereas start-ups are for those in a position to take the risk of company failure in order to build a function from scratch and have the chance to influence the values and mission of the business.
If you’re in a leadership role, it’s also very important to be emotionally intelligent and remember that you’re dealing with humans – especially in times like this. That’s key in both internal and external Communications, particularly when you might have difficult messages to communicate or challenges to overcome as an organisation. It’s important not to be robotic, and to ensure you work with your team in an emotionally intelligent way.
Valentina has been working as Director of Growth and Communications since July 2016, and oversees OakNorth’s communications, playing an active role in evolving the company brand and mission.
For more information about how OakNorth might be able to support your business, visit www.oaknorth.co.uk.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.