Private banking may not at first appear the most family-friendly of careers. However, as long as the right support is in place it is possible not only to juggle a career with motherhood, but to thrive in both spheres, explains Joanna Thornell of Coutts.

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Becoming a parent is a daunting prospect for anyone, but it could be argued that for private bankers the imminent patter of tiny feet might be even more fraught with worry as they ponder how to balance a demanding career with family life. However, while it may be a tricky balancing act combining the two it is possible – as long as you have the right support, one high-flying female executive tells WealthBriefing.

Wealth management is a notoriously competitive market for employers and in the course of tracking the movements of private bankers this publication always takes note of what firms are doing to attract and retain the industry’s brightest minds. Compensation levels are of course key, but it can often be cultural factors which convince bankers to stay for the long haul, and it would seem that it might be babies, not bonuses, which are the real “sticking point.”

Initially, private banking may not strike one as the most family-friendly of careers – not in a world where the markets never sleep and one is entrusted with the fortunes of a notoriously demanding client base. However, as long as the right support is in place it is possible not only to juggle a career with motherhood, but to thrive in both spheres, explains Joanna Thornell of Coutts.

Babies no bar to progression

Thornell was a private banker at the top of her game when her daughter, now aged nine, was born, and since her arrival Thornell’s career has continued to go from strength to strength. Contrary to what some female private bankers might fear, her ascent up the corporate ladder has not been slowed at all by motherhood and she is proof positive that babies and banking can go hand-in-hand.

Thornell, now managing director of banking services at Coutts, began her career on the NatWest graduate training scheme in 1990 (NatWest is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, of which Coutts is the wealth management division). After a few years in investment banking she moved over into corporate governance at a group level, and it was in this capacity she first came into contact with the blue-blooded private banking business. She then became a private banking assistant in London and after a brief secondment on a strategic project she became a fully-fledged private banker in the late 1990s, working both in the capital and regionally. A series of promotions followed which saw her head up various Coutts’ offices across the length and breadth of the country, before her elevation to managing partner and then eventually managing director.

Speaking at the firm’s iconic offices on The Strand, Thornell jokes that she has “tested every policy Coutts has got”, referring to having worked both part-time and with flexible hours following the birth of her daughter. She does, however, have a serious point: that as long as the contract between employer and employee is honoured on both sides there is no reason for motherhood to hamper a stellar career in private banking.

The “acid test” for employers

By this she means that if the organisation itself really values the employee and they, in turn, are committed to doing a great job, then a way to make things work can be found. While she believes that maternity is a “true test” of how much institutions value a banker, she points out that employees need to be just as clear about their attitude to still delivering, if in a more flexible way.

“If you are considered as ‘talent’ then you should actually be able to say to your employer ‘my ambition hasn’t changed, my commitment hasn’t changed but right now - for the next year - I have to be at the school gate three days a week’ or ‘I can’t commit to this’”, she says. Needing flexibility shouldn’t present a bar to career progression and if it does then, in her view, that is a case of the organisation not understanding the way that real people’s lives and careers unfold. “Not everyone’s career goes straight up a mountain in great diagonal phases; actually people ebb and flow and that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” she says.

Thornell has glowing words in praise of Coutts’ attitude towards her need for flexible working and, moreover, the bank’s ongoing support for all parents working at the firm – both male and female. Along with many of her male colleagues, she herself has a “rule” of never missing her daughter’s school sports days and Coutts is happy to accommodate this. “I might walk on to the field on my phone and I may not turn it off, but I never want to miss a sports day… I see that as part of my life and I know a lot of my male colleagues are exactly the same,” she says, adding that while she may take time out to spend an hour or two on a field she’ll be working both before and after to ensure that it all works out and her employer gets the same from her as if she had foregone attending.

Thornell is conscious of the fact that while Coutts may have been very accommodating, this might not be the case at other firms as you are after all “asking very different things of your employer when you come back after maternity leave.”

Less positive attitudes towards flexible working certainly exist, she concedes, and not just within the financial services industry. Indeed, her own friends working across various industries have all had differing experiences. “Different firms have had different reactions to maternity leave and requests for part-time working. Some have been negative; some incredibly good,” she says.

Here, Thornell also makes the important point that employees also need to be flexible and accommodating in their demands as “part-time is a privilege, not a right.” We also touch on the subject of co-workers’ perceptions and the fact that childless colleagues may resent having to “take up the slack” when co-workers children are ill, for example, as of course they inevitably are on occasion.

Babies in banks?

One laudable provision which has been in place at Coutts since 2008 is its Bright Horizons service, which provides emergency childcare for when children need to stay off school or when other arrangements fall through. This service is something which is greatly appreciated by staff at the bank and is drawn on by both male and female colleagues, she notes. Thornell herself finds the existence of the service to be “a great comfort” since her family support network is actually out of the country for three months of the year, making Bright Horizons a great fallback, albeit one she hasn’t had to use yet herself.

And it is not just Coutts which is showing this level of understanding towards the realities of parenting. Also in 2008, Deutsche Bank unveiled a workplace nursery (the first of its kind in the City) to provide both full-time and emergency care for babies and children from three months to five years.

But if firms are showing admirable levels of compassion in providing practical solutions to the inevitable humps in the road of parenting, what of clients themselves? How do they react to the news that their banker will soon have rather more than the markets on their minds? Here, Thornell also has words of comfort for prospective parents. For the most part, clients have been “incredibly understanding” she says.

It would seem in fact that when it comes to parenthood private bankers might actually be at an advantage when compared to their counterparts in other areas of financial services. Clients’ understanding of Thornell’s need for flexibility was helped immeasurably by the fact that there was this personal relationship between them already, she notes. Whether a corporate client would be so willing to “flex” is debateable.

Another boon for working parents has of course been the advent of new technologies which mean that they don’t have to be “chained to the desk”. Being truly mobile has been a vital piece in the puzzle for Thornell, meaning that when her child was a young baby she could work while she slept and keep just as keen an eye on portfolios at home as in the office. Without technological capabilities like smartphones, combining a private banking career with parenthood would be “incredibly difficult”, she acknowledges.

Indeed it could be argued that mobile technologies have made it easier to find a work/life balance for everyone and while it might now be harder to “switch off” this is a challenge far preferable to the necessity of being desk-bound. Any career will arguably always involve stress, it’s just a matter of choosing the most manageable kind.

Thornell concedes that her own journey has certainly presented its challenges and concerns, with one of her main worries having been whether she would be able to continue to perform at the highest level. Adding another overlay of stress to an already high-pressured working life is also something which is naturally front-of-mind. But here again Thornell is upbeat, saying that the new stresses of home and family life are “just something you have to learn to cope with.” 

A lot of the trick is learning what to let go of in her view; people need to realise that you don’t need to have a pristine home and it’s ok if there are Lego pieces lying around sometimes. In short, successfully juggling a private banking career with parenthood is all about flexibility: flexibility from banks, clients and employees themselves, and a flexibility of attitude which recognises that a commitment to great parenting doesn’t preclude the same level of commitment to one’s career.

So, for prospective parents who are also private bankers Thornell’s message is clear: combining the two can be done if the right support is there. “It’s difficult but you just find yourself doing it,” she concludes.