From Finance to Fin Tech CEO – Alison Hutchinson CBE & Jonathan Bowman-Perks: Inspiring Leadership Interview

Alison Hutchinson CBE is the CEO of Pennies, an award-winning Fin Tech charity making digital giving affordable, sustainable, and feel-good. Previously, Alison spent 15 years at IBM running a European consortium of banks, and leading the global business for e-commerce solutions for the financial services sector. She next joined Barclays Bank where she was the first CEO for a small digital subsidiary joint venture with Accenture, and latterly Marketing Director at Barclaycard. Prior to Pennies, Alison was Chief Executive of FTSE financial services company Kensington Group plc.

She currently holds Non-Executive Director positions at Yorkshire Building Society, LV= and DFS. Alison was very inspired by the values and upbringing of her parents; especially her Mum “Aunty Betty”. She learnt a hard work ethic, how to start multiple businesses in the West Coast of Scotland and putting back to charity and the community. That hard work ethic has stayed with her and she has worked incredibly hard with a small determined group of charity supporters to make Pennies the success it is today with the difference it’s making to other peoples lives.  The other thing that people admire in Alison is her incredible ability to network and to just ask people for help and support with the charity. She has brought in some amazing partners and senior leaders who willingly give: time, resources and/or money to help others less fortunate than themselves.

She’s inspired by everyday people & what they do in their lives. She spoke on the advantages of Executive Coaching. Learning from mistakes – her style was sometimes to be over positive, strong and passionate and that can be overwhelming. The danger is it may come over as aggressive and she realised that she needed to dial back. She learnt a key skill in CEOs – let others talk first & understand them – put yourself in the receiver’s shoes.
Top Tips – How you do things is far more than what you do. People often forget what you say, and if you get what you do but they never forget how you make them feel. They cost you so little and yet it makes such an enormous difference to those you lead and those you work with when you learn that keyword “I’m Sorry”