In the last of our series celebrating International Women’s Day, which was on Tuesday 8th March, we speak to Clare Carré, Head of Credit and Lending Services at Investec Bank (Channel Islands), who has experienced several careers in leadership roles.
What do you do?
I am Head of Credit and Lending Services which also includes the Banking Legal Team. I have been with Investec for over four years.
I am a lawyer, starting my working life in the British Army. Following Royal Military Academy Sandhurst I joined the Army Legal team on operations in Kosovo and Bosnia. Then I undertook a MBA and moved out into operations living and working in Germany, Abu Dhabi and finally Guernsey in a number of interesting a varied roles (with a moment in Jamaica!)
In all this I have had three children: twin girls (18) and a boy (15).
What are the two top skills that have benefitted your career to date?
My main skills have been curiosity and continuous learning. This has enabled my skillset to be truly transferable as I am interested in many different things. I am now undertaking training in ESG and Climate Risk to upskill myself in this important area.
How can the Channel Islands play a part in enabling women to achieve their career ambitions?
Ensure we move away from having the ‘token’ woman in the room. We need to get women into the boardroom and leadership teams so that it becomes a normal part of working life and at that point we no longer need an International Women’s Day. Support childcare and flexible practices for all carers, someone has to look after children so how do we do that?
Who inspires you and why?
Many people and writers…too many to list and I keep meeting them!
How does enabling women to become leaders benefit an organisation?
It is just one aspect of diversity. Diversity enables resilience as you have many and varied voices in the room. You wouldn’t want your body to lack genetic diversity, so why would you want your organisation?
We have seen the need for strength and diversity in the current pandemic; how do you withstand shocks and come out stronger if you don’t have resilience.
Also, diversity reflects the world the business is in – how do you understand your clients, employees, customers if their views are not represented in your business? It is arrogant to think that you know it all representing one sector of society.
How has Investec supported you as you have developed your career?
Investec has allowed me to be curious and take on tasks that don’t naturally and necessarily fit in my role, I can’t grow unless this can happen. You really don’t want me sitting in the same seat doing the same thing day in day out, that will stifle innovation and curiosity which is no good for anyone!
What do you feel International Women’s Day represents?
Sadness that we still need to have one. We know where this is going and we need to embrace it and just get on with what needs to happen. We can’t change this overnight, there has been 400 years of positive discrimination in favour of men; everything is set up to support that bias, from parenting to education to culture and systems in place, this is not a simple answer! The diversity needs to be in place to enable different decisions to be made and to address the bias.
