00:00:00
It was humiliating reading in the press what had happened. I got fired twice in 6 months
00:00:05
unless we could raise funding. I was never paid. There weren't going to be any jobs. And after 6 months, I just thought, I can't work with this person.
00:00:11
You had a tough time. Really damaging to me and my mental health. Tom didn't think I was capable
00:00:16
and so I resigned. Nothing was going to stop Stalin succeeding. People don't start banks and if they do
00:00:23
start a bank, they are probably a billionaire. When I started talking to people about I'm going to start a bank,
00:00:30
you know, I could see people thinking I was totally crazy. I hadn't raised a penny. The only money that gone into the
00:00:36
business was my money. And he said, "No, I'm not going to give you 3 million. I'm going to give you 48." I have the
00:00:44
privilege of running Staling. And it is a privilege and there's lots of things going wrong and lots of pressures on me,
00:00:51
but it's a great privilege to have. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you would have heard the episode I did with Tom Blumfield. He was
00:01:08
the former CEO and founder of Monzo Bank, one of the big fintech disruptor banks here in the UK. And during that
00:01:15
episode, he also tells us the story of his time at Stling Bank, the rival bank that he co-founded with Anne Bowden. And
00:01:23
that episode is dramatic. It should be a movie. They talk about their fallout. In
00:01:28
the episode, Tom claims that Anne fired 16 members of staff in the same day. So,
00:01:33
in this episode, Anne wanted to come in to tell her side of the story, but also to tell her story. And it's an incredible story. It's an inspiring
00:01:44
story. It's a story that doesn't quite make sense in the fact that she's achieved so much in an industry where
00:01:51
she was an underdog at an age when she also admits she is an underdog, confronting stereotypes that make her an underdog. And despite the odds being stacked against her, she's built a
00:02:03
multi-billion dollar bank here in the UK. It really is a crazy story, one that I believe one day will be a Netflix show. Think about that. Two people came together to take
00:02:15
on the banking world. They came together and founded a bank called Starling Bank. They had this major blow up. They
00:02:22
separated and starts again and they both build incredibly successful multibillion
00:02:29
dollar banks individually. It is one hell of a story. It twists, it turns, and it inspires you. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's
00:02:42
listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. [Music] An humble beginnings. Do you think that's a accurate phrase to
00:02:59
describe the start of your life? Yeah, it was humble. Um, my my father worked in the steelworks. Um, my father
00:03:07
came home from work with newspapers under his arm, all greasy from, you know, sort of doing hard work. My mom worked in the local department store.
00:03:18
Um, and we were happy. Brothers and sisters, no, only child. Um, my parents married
00:03:25
late. My father came back from the Second World War. Um, found um, his dream wife and they had a really, really happy marriage. and school life and
00:03:36
uh I went to a local comprehensive school. Uh it's a very very new school. Um I was brought up in my grandmother's
00:03:44
house, my parents, my grandmother in a older house on the edge of a big big council estate
00:03:51
and in the middle of this huge council estate they built this new comprehensive school and it was
00:03:59
not a very good school. It was very new. I was one of the first children to go to university. And to be honest, there was
00:04:07
a bit of a stigma from coming from that area and that school. And you were you were smart, right? Cuz
00:04:12
I I know you went on to do computer science and I know people that do computer science are smart asses. So you you're definitely smart, right?
00:04:19
Yeah. I think um I did most of my studying myself. The school um couldn't do a lot to help to be honest when I had my O levels. I think everybody was quite shocked by how well I'd done. Um, but I
00:04:34
did most of my studying, by, you know, buying my own textbooks and reading myself. And the house wasn't a an academic home. My father left school at
00:04:45
15 at 14. My mother at 15. Um, there were no books at home except holiday brochers. We lived to go on holiday. We were a very, very happy family. We had a
00:04:56
touring caravan and we went all over Europe. Um but it was very unusual for um a daughter of that home to be interested in studying.
00:05:08
Why? Um why I was studying or why it was unusual. Why was it unusual for Yeah. I think the um my parents didn't
00:05:19
push me. My parents believed were very liberal. You know, they you know, all the kids of the neighborhood sort of hung out in our house. It was a very happy home. Um, we were very very
00:05:33
fortunate to have just a probably a little bit more money than everybody living around us. Um, but there was no
00:05:41
emphasis on on education. Um, that was something I did. You know, I went to the local academic bookshop and and I remember sort of taking a book off the shelf. You know, what do you do at 14?
00:05:54
You know, what subjects do you choose? This was all my This was me choosing these things, not my parents. And you were choosing those subjects because you you enjoyed you
00:06:06
intrinsically enjoyed learning or because you wanted to become super wildly successful as a mega entrepreneur. I wanted a job with a briefcase. I
00:06:17
wanted a job in an office. I didn't actually know anybody that worked in an office. Um my inspiration was from
00:06:25
television. It was very much seeing people on television and seeing that people had jobs in in London in
00:06:33
glamorous places were doing interesting things and I could do that and my parents were very supportive. They gave me as much money as I wanted to spend in the bookshop. Um yeah and they you know
00:06:46
went out and bought me they bought me a 24 volume set of Excited Britannica. The
00:06:54
only problem was it was 1953 edition, right? So all my knowledge was somewhat sort of outdated, but it was a great home and we did interesting things and I
00:07:05
did well in school and I went to university and at that point I'm guessing you didn't have a huge from what you said a
00:07:11
desire to become an entrepreneur. I never thought I'd ever be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is
00:07:18
something which is quite recent. you know, coming out of school, it was very much I wanted a job that was scientific
00:07:26
or um or interesting where I could I actually wanted to be a scientist. I actually wanted to be doing something with chemistry and computers, whatever.
00:07:38
And my mom said to me, you're going to try for one normal job, you know, um apply for a job in a bank. And I did. And the competition for the job was
00:07:49
huge. There were thousands of people applying for a job at Lloyd's Bank to be a computer um specialist as a graduate computer specialist and I got the job.
00:08:00
So when I got the job I had to take it. This is post university. Yeah. Why did you choose computer science at
00:08:07
university and am I right in thinking because it's still kind of the case now that that was a very
00:08:15
maledominated subject to choose. Yeah. Um, it was almost all men. Um, my father thought I could possibly be a metallologist at the steel works. What's a metallologist for somebody?
00:08:30
You know, studies metals. Metals are are made. Um, yeah. Um, but there was no there was no concept of home of jobs for women or jobs for men. Um, that didn't really exist. I came from a home where
00:08:44
my mother was very capable and my grandmother was very capable. So me becoming a computer scientist and going
00:08:51
to um Swansea University to study where they were all men wasn't something that really phased me. And you go off to the to university, you study computer science, you do pretty well at university, I'm guessing.
00:09:04
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you did great, I'm sure. Uh and then you get get this job at Lloyd's Bank in the in the graduate program. And
00:09:10
you're there for how long? Uh 4 and a half years. I do four and a half years before I quit. Oh, really? Is that a Yeah, I I I had a four and a half year thing going on.
00:09:21
Right. So I was four and a half years at Lawrence Bank. Um you know, great job, you know. So, you know, did the branch
00:09:27
thing, did all the jobs uh and then uh my first boss told me, you better tone down your aspirations otherwise you'll get very very frustrated. Ooh. Ooh. And
00:09:41
that didn't work with me. I was really really determined that I was going to get on. So I did four and a half years
00:09:48
at Lloyd's Bank. I did five years at Standard Chartered Bank. I did three and a half years at Price Waterhouse uh studying banks and advising banks.
00:10:00
And uh I went to UBS uh in uh in in the city and then out to Switzerland. five years out in Switzerland working for a big bank. Uh joined a big insurance company, worked
00:10:11
all over the world, worked in Chicago a bit. Uh and then joined a bank in Amsterdam, Abian Amro. Um worked in all sorts of places from Kazakhstan to
00:10:22
Ubekistan to all the places around the world. I quit again. Uh spent some time in fintech before going into all Irish banks as chief operating officer. So
00:10:33
that that stint across all of those different banks that you worked in across all of these different territories, how long was that in total?
00:10:41
Uh for 30 odd years. So I did. Yeah. Yeah. I started in 1981 and I I quit to become an entrepreneur
00:10:53
um in 2014. That's very atypical. Oh yeah. It's it's very very unusual. I've also done different things in the jobs. I keep meeting people and people
00:11:07
go, I know an Bowden. She worked in insurance and I go, "That's me." And they go, "No, no, no, no. This old there's an Bowden and she worked in in she's a computer scientist. She did
00:11:18
computing things." Uh, no, no, that that's me. Um, so I've had a long career doing lots of different things in different companies, but I was a corporate person. When I quit to become an entrepreneur,
00:11:33
that was something I'd never done. And did you consciously make the decision that I don't want to do the corporate life stuff anymore? I want to
00:11:45
start my own business and give it a shot. And when you did that, what age were you? 54. At 54 years old, you decide that you
00:11:52
want to go it alone and give up all of that corporate stuff and all the the perks per you can say perks. All the perks, the stability, the security of the corporate world. And
00:12:06
yeah, well, I was getting up every morning thinking somebody has to do something about this banking industry. I
00:12:12
was sort of ashamed to be a banker. I wasn't quite comfortable with it. And the banking industry was, you know,
00:12:20
hadn't hadn't embraced tech. You know, everything was changing and the banking industry was looking backwards rather
00:12:25
than forwards. And I started thinking, look, you know, I've got a bit of independence now. I can do whatever I
00:12:31
want. Uh, I really like to do my own business and perhaps I'll start a dress shop, right? You know, I quite like fashion, you know, perhaps I'll do a dress shop. And
00:12:44
I realized I know nothing about fashion. I know a lot about banking and what I should do is start a bank. And but nobody ever starts banks. Yeah, I was going to say it's not like a
00:12:56
No one goes from I'll do a dress shop maybe a bank. Bank people don't. Yeah. I Yeah. I the only thing I knew
00:13:02
about was banks and how banks are run. And you know people who start banks well they don't start banks. People don't start banks. And if they do start a bank, they are probably a billionaire
00:13:15
and therefore, you know, I was very different, you know. And when I started talking to people about, you know, I am going to start a bank, you know, I could
00:13:27
see people thinking I was totally crazy. Of course, you know, first of all, people don't
00:13:33
start banks, and a 5-ft tall Welsh woman definitely doesn't start a bank. Yes. I hate to support the stereotypes, but I wouldn't start a bank like if if if I was a, you know, 40-year-old
00:13:48
billionaire white male that was 6' 10, let alone Yeah. a a slightly shorter Welsh woman. So, just want to be cuz I really, this is purely for my curiosity here cuz I'm trying to understand how
00:14:00
you like, you know, cuz yeah, I don't have the guts. So, um, you're 50 50 odd years old. You're currently in your corporate job. Yeah. And and whilst you're at the job, you
00:14:11
start thinking about starting the bank. Okay. And at some point you hand in your resignation. At what point did you hand
00:14:18
in the resignation? Was it while you were still in the job and the bank had started moving or did you leave and then
00:14:24
start start uh putting in the foundations? No, I I decided very quickly I left. Um and within weeks I was working on the new proposition. Um
00:14:38
it's only last weekend I started unpacking the boxes. I came back from Ireland. I was in Ireland. Um and I
00:14:46
decided you know you know gave my notice in you know started the whole proposition. um you know booked the
00:14:52
removal vans to bring me back over and then you know put them in the house and immediately went out knocking on doors.
00:14:59
Um it's only now I'm finding some time to unpack those boxes. Wow. How many years later?
00:15:04
Uh seven years criy. So you you leave you start knocking on doors. How did you feel emotionally when you leave the corporate system and you hand in your resignation and you know
00:15:17
you're going but you don't have your next move like solidified yet? You're still building that thing. You know they
00:15:23
describe entrepreneurship as throwing yourself off the cliff and like building the power glider as you fall. How did you feel emotionally at that phase?
00:15:30
I think you have to cope with the fact that you no longer have that that business card. You no longer have a
00:15:37
title. Um, and you know, I thought it was going to be relatively easy to raise money for Stalin Bank, you know, sort of. Yes. And you know, sort of I raised money in a in a job before. I could
00:15:48
knock on a faux doors and they would give me the money I needed. It was incredibly difficult.
00:15:55
I, you know, going into lots of offices basically saying, I have this great idea. Okay. Um, it's an awesome idea. I'm going to build a bank like no other bank. uh we're going to build the
00:16:07
technology from scratch. Um it's going to be really fair to customers. It's going to have an whole new way of
00:16:12
engaging with the people that it served. Um and I'm going to take market share of
00:16:18
Barclays and HSBC and Lloyds. Um that's all I need is some money. Uh people would some people would tell me to my face that I was never going to do it. um
00:16:30
you know the people who thought they were being kind would say you know you've never been an entrepreneur and you've never run a bank as a CEO before
00:16:38
um and those two things are things you can't you know raise money for um so it is tough and yeah there was a lot and lots of knocking on doors lots of people
00:16:53
telling me it was impossible and in some cases it paused really hard to carry on, you know, sort of sending the emails, but I was determined
00:17:07
and even a glimpse of people somebody telling me something positive was enough to drive me on to the next meeting. And was there a blow at that time that felt the
00:17:18
hardest? Um, an email, a meeting? Uh yeah, I think that there was one meeting with an with a set of investors where I
00:17:29
just didn't have any of the answers. You know, you've been there. You're an entrepreneur. I know. Okay. They ask you
00:17:35
all these questions. Um and I didn't have any of the answers. You know, hadn't got as far as, you know, coming
00:17:41
up with that part of the plan. And that felt, you know, that felt awful. Um but you you pick yourself up
00:17:49
and you figure out how you're going to find the answers. And you find the answers by asking people for help. You
00:17:54
ask people for help that have that are in the industry. You ask people that help for help that you've worked with in
00:18:01
the past. There's a stereotype that people that build technology are from Silicon
00:18:07
Valley. They're like young white men um you know that probably went to Harvard or something like that. Yeah. Um you buck that trend. Yeah. when you were walking into those rooms and having those conversations,
00:18:19
were you aware that there was a certain pre prejudice probably acting against you? Oh, definitely. You know, um, people assume that I'm not technical. People
00:18:30
assume that I'm not, you know, capable of coding. You know, there's code running in banks, big banks today that I
00:18:36
wrote. Uh, people assume that you have to be from Silicon Valley, you have to be in your 20s or your 30s. um and look and sound a certain way to build a tech
00:18:49
company. Um you don't look like me or sound like me. Um but I was determined to build a tech company and that was very very hard for people to to
00:19:01
appreciate. What was your what was the driving force that spurred you on regardless of the
00:19:06
resistance that you clearly encountered then? What was it that made you know I'm going to keep going. I'm going to carry
00:19:12
on knocking. I think that at that time I was talking to venture capitalists and investors
00:19:19
about this concept of a new bank. Yeah, it is possible to build a new bank. It is possible to be a bank that actually
00:19:26
has a lower cost base, has a different way of relating to customers. It is possible to do this. And I kept hearing those same statements replayed in
00:19:36
different ways to different roots. you know, occasionally I go on to um a VC sort of website from from Silicon Valley and somebody'd say roughly the same
00:19:48
thing. Uh there weren't any new banks at that stage. There wasn't anybody else doing it. But I felt that there was um
00:19:56
whether it was an echo chamber, whether that was my own ideas back to me or other people were thinking the same way,
00:20:03
I felt I was on to something. M I felt that it was possible for people to create an um organizations that are going to change things
00:20:16
and you'd never done it before. So would you describe yourself as someone that has a high level of self-belief at that
00:20:22
point? I've managed to pull off things throughout my career where people thought I couldn't go to the next stage. Um throughout my career, people have
00:20:33
looked at me and thought, "Yeah, okay. She'll probably get one promotion. She won't get any more."
00:20:41
Um those people will normally well, working in my department a few years later. Um so I've always managed to go one step
00:20:52
beyond or a couple of steps beyond people what people expected. When I started this venture, I was surrounded
00:20:58
by people who knew how this new world worked. They knew how venture capital worked. They knew how how you behaved, how you talked, how you pitched your ideas. I had to learn that. And I was
00:21:16
as a woman and as somebody who come from the corporate world, I was not used to overselling my ideas. You know, one of the things about Stling's whole journey is that we tend to overd deliver because
00:21:32
deep down you tend to underplay your ideas or underplay your success and therefore you know stings consistently overd delivered and surprised people over the years.
00:21:47
Is that a fe typical stereotypical autoypical feminine quality? this idea of like because people talk a lot about the reason why um some of the
00:21:59
reason why um uh women in business um struggle to get promotions is they're less likely to loquate and oversell themselves and
00:22:10
demand promotions in the same way that men do. So I'm wondering that like that conservatism and that um overd delivering but not
00:22:22
overpromising is something that's quite typical of women. Yeah. I think it's a question of it's a
00:22:28
very very difficult balance. If you if you come over as arrogant, if you come over as demanding, you're not likable. M um if you if you're too soft and too and
00:22:40
underplay what you have or what you're doing, you're too soft, you know, sort of you can't get it right. Um but
00:22:51
I had to learn how to sell the ideas and it took years. It's interesting. I don't like to dwell too much on like gender differences, but I I I think I'm asking that question as
00:23:02
well because I remember a VC friend of mine um and also a guy called I think it was Chamath, but a guy called Chimath
00:23:08
who's one of the big uh investors and he says that the female founded businesses in his portfolio always over have when
00:23:16
he Kevin Olirri as well from Shark Tank, he said the same thing. He said his female founders um underpromise and
00:23:23
overd deliver consistently like and he said when I looked at all of my portfolio companies I think he's got 40
00:23:28
or 50 the femaleled businesses were outperforming significantly because they were under underpromising and overd
00:23:34
delivering. There's a big announcement that's just come out today in fact um if you're listening to this it would have
00:23:40
been about 2 weeks ago. Hu have now released their new flavors and thankfully I can now talk about them.
00:23:45
They've released a flavor which I think might now be my best flavor. Everybody's been asking for the the sort of the
00:23:52
caffeine the caffeinated version of Hu. They've released an iced coffee caramel flavor which is amazing. I've tried
00:23:57
that. They've released a salted caramel flavor. If you know me, you know that's my favorite flavor in the world, but
00:24:02
surprisingly the flavor which I think might be my new favorite is the cinnamon swirl. I know
00:24:09
it sounds strange, right? I never would have asked for that. But the truth of life is that sometimes the things you
00:24:17
didn't know you wanted are the things you needed the most. And for me, Hule cinnamon swirl flavor I think is my
00:24:22
favorite flavor now. Very random, but try it. Delicious. Honestly, delicious and uh nutritionally complete. Win-win
00:24:29
win-win. So, hiring those first few people, Stling Bank, what was that process like? Um and and really sort of laying the foundations of that business.
00:24:40
Well, it was all about sort of phoning up people I knew, explaining what I was going to do and the idea and really
00:24:49
working with every organization I knew, trying to get favors. Uh the the traditional venture capital route wasn't open to me. uh actually going to um VCs
00:25:02
and saying can I can I can I raise 50,000 100,000 300,000 it it wasn't open to to me because
00:25:13
I I wasn't like the other people and those schemes I had to really work with big
00:25:20
consultancy firms and tell them that I had this idea to start a new bank and they were going to miss out if They didn't back me. Unfortunately, I didn't have any money to pay them. I would pay them once I raised the money, but would
00:25:33
they help me? Uh, and some of those big firms decided to back me. And lots of people in those firms took big personal risk because most people in those big
00:25:46
consulting firms thought that this was just totally crazy idea. She wants to take on Barclays. Ha, it'll never happen. No, no, let's try it. you know, we may learn something on
00:25:58
the way, you know, sort of she got all these crazy ideas. We may be able to take them and sell them to other customers, you know, let let's just just
00:26:04
help her. And I must admit, I hung out in their customer lounges uh for years. Really? Yeah. Just chilling, just Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So, you you you you
00:26:18
raise money in a slightly unconventional way considering the industry. Then you start calling people that you want to
00:26:24
hire from the banking world that you've met or Yeah, I phone them up. I've always been quite an unusual boss. I've always been quite um different to
00:26:36
the people that I, you know, work with and other organizations. Uh people tend to be quite loyal to me
00:26:44
and I phone them up and say, um yeah, I got a great idea. We're going to start this bank. Uh do you fancy coming to
00:26:50
work with me? uh and we'll raise some money whatever and that's how the team got together.
00:26:56
So the the the who was in the core team? Yeah. Okay. So there's there was a couple of core teams. Okay. There was
00:27:03
the the first core team was the bunch that eventually went to to found Monzo. Tom's which you write about in the book and Tom's been here. Yeah. So the that was the first cohort.
00:27:13
Yeah. Yeah. And then Tom left. Yeah. Uh with the team and I started again. I started again in
00:27:22
exactly the same way, phoning people up and say, "Yep, I'm still trying to start
00:27:28
this bank, you know, please, please come and help me." So Tom in particular, Tom obviously sat
00:27:34
here, he did the podcast, which I'm sure you've heard, and you've written about um Tom in the book as well. How did you
00:27:39
come to meet Tom? I met Tom at a dinner, right? I I met Tom at a dinner in 2011 uh when
00:27:47
he was working with Go-Kardless. And I I spotted him as being a very clever, funny, charismatic individual uh that was running a business and we kept
00:28:01
in touch. So when you started stalling, you needed was it a CTO? He came on as a CTO.
00:28:08
So uh yeah, I needed a CTO. Um I'd been a bit of a mentor to Tom. Tom had gone to the States to work for U Grouper. You
00:28:15
know, we kept in touch. I'd met him for coffee once or twice and when he was back coming I mean in the UK I phoned
00:28:22
him up and said or he contacted me says he's back uh and we I hired him as CTO. So he hires a CTO he then builds out the technical team I'm guessing that's typically what CTO we we you know we
00:28:35
started hiring developers. Yeah. Okay. And was there because I obviously it's well written that the there was a bit of a fallout here. Yeah. um take me on that journey. When
00:28:47
did when when did that how did the relationship start and when was there when was there friction?
00:28:53
Uh it one day Tom decides to um to go um unfortunately um we were about to take funding um uh
00:29:06
which meant that the deal was not going to happen and basically at that particular point um the funding and the
00:29:14
team fell apart. Um, you know, looking looking back of what happened, you know, I you know, Tom had a really really really tough time at Monzo.
00:29:25
Um, I feel for him. Um, perhaps that we could have stayed together as a team and
00:29:32
I could have done what I'm good at and perhaps Tom could have done what he was good at. Uh, but you know, sort of,
00:29:39
you know, that's history. Both Monzo and Stling have done really really well and having a bit of competition does actually lead to a probably a better
00:29:51
industry. The Cler founder that came on said that about Afterpay as well. I I read that
00:29:57
there was a funding deal um early on but you pulled out of the funding deal because one of the founders was involved
00:30:02
in a crime. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So you Stling Bank was going to take funding. Mhm. And you pulled out of the deal because
00:30:15
one of the founders of the firm Investing was involved in a serious crime or because Staling was involved in
00:30:21
a serious crime. I couldn't quite No, no. Staling was not you know this was this was um this was a fund we're
00:30:27
going to take investment about from and one of the founders of that firm. Okay. Didn't have the reputation that we
00:30:34
wanted. Stalin is a very very staling believes in something. We have a mission. We believe in doing the right thing and I think it's very very important that we
00:30:47
you know especially in those early days we maintain and are true to our vision and that caused a disagreement between yourself and it wasn't that it wasn't that there was a a culture
00:30:59
clash around a corny video I heard that was being produced um I'm trying to understand what like cuz I get I get I understand a point where
00:31:11
founders part ways, but typically that's there's lots of small things that happen leading up into that point. Little
00:31:16
points of friction or disagreements. And what were those um points of disagreement?
00:31:22
I think Tom and I have much more in common than people think. Um you know, sort of Tom and I often sit on panels
00:31:30
now, right? So, so it's a panel of four and you know, and they go, "Great idea. I've left Stling and Monzo on the panel and we'll have two traditional banks in the middle, you know, Barclays and
00:31:42
Lloyds, whatever. And um and there's lots of questions and somebody asks the question and there's going to be two answers. There's going to be one set of answers from Tom
00:31:53
and myself. We tend to have the same view on things and then a different answer from the from the incumbent
00:31:59
banks. And sometimes I can see, you know, I look across the panel, catch sort of Tom's eye, and he and you know, I answer or he answers. There's lots
00:32:11
more we have in common. And it's a really it's a real pity it, you know, it ended the way it did. You know, you know, there lots of places in the book where I talk about um, you know, sort
00:32:23
of, you know, Tom's intellect and and Tom's energy. Um, it's a real pity it ended the way it did. There came a day where you you turned to to Tom and you knew there was something wrong and you you say to him, you know,
00:32:36
Tom, is there is there you don't seem happy about something here. And um and he he responds that he's sick of your knee-jerk behavior. How did how did that feel? What was what
00:32:49
was he referring to when he says sick of your knee-jerk behavior? I think that um you know businesses are
00:32:57
very very stressful. I think Tom you know is is an individual that sometimes has tough times and you know sort of every single conversation between
00:33:12
founders um on the wrong day about the wrong thing could possibly lead to that sort of breakup. But um wow, what a story. Eh,
00:33:24
how would you describe the differences in your personalities? Cuz it seems like that's probably at the heart of the
00:33:30
clash. I don't think different personalities lead the clashes. Interesting. I think that people who have different personalities
00:33:42
working together can create great businesses. Yeah. Um, I think Tom, you know, went on, you know, to to, you know, sort of lead a
00:33:54
great group at Monzo and, you know, and I've listened to his the show, um, where
00:34:00
he talked to you and he had a tough time. When you heard that, how did you feel about the way that the events were recounted?
00:34:14
Be honest with me. want to know that. Yeah, it's a very very difficult very difficult question to answer. Um,
00:34:22
I chose Tom as a CTO. Um, I still believe he is an extremely talented individual and he has, you know, grown a great business. Of course, Stling is a better
00:34:36
business. Um uh but isn't it great that what happened you know the story of you know it's a yeah you know two individuals come across each other um they meet you
00:34:52
know sort of one decides to start a bank hires the other person um there's a falling out both businesses going on to
00:35:00
really change things um well it's it's it's the story of digital banking in the UK Hey, I keep wondering if, you know, if that story never happened, uh, would
00:35:12
we've all got so much, you know, sort of inches in the press to be honest. It was
00:35:17
quite a story. But how did you feel when you heard the way that he recounted the events? You you're
00:35:23
listening to it. It's coming through your ears and you're thinking, it's the first time I'd heard it, but I knew that that story was being retold in
00:35:31
places where I couldn't hear it. Um, but I'm quite philosophical about this. We all see the world and a story in different ways. And yeah, you know, it's
00:35:44
a it's it's another piece in the story of the Stling Monzo journey. And at this time when you and Tom are having a fallout um within stling and you you've realized I guess that you know you have
00:35:58
different ideas and perspectives about how things should be done and where they should be going. You hold a crisis meeting, you come together um I guess
00:36:05
you have those meetings I guess because you're trying to discuss a way a way through a way to a positive outcome. I
00:36:11
think at some point you realize that there's not going to be a positive outcome and one of you is going to have to leave and then you offer up your
00:36:18
resignation. Yeah. Yeah. So, you offered to to quit Staling Bank. Mhm. Yeah. I you know, and that's you've talked about, you know, how women act
00:36:30
differently to men. I was prepared to give up stalling. I was prepared to give up my part in stalling for the good of Stalling. And that was a very stupid thing to do.
00:36:43
Why? Because it was my business. It was my idea. Um, I'd got the business to where
00:36:51
it was, but I was volunteering to give up my role in Stalin because I wanted Stalin to succeed. Tom, I think didn't think I was capable.
00:37:07
Somebody that like me that has spent so many years in corporate life that I wasn't capable of delivering and building a big tech company
00:37:20
and I built a big tech company. Um, yeah. So he didn't have that faith in me, but I realized that I could do it and made it happen.
00:37:36
Specifically in those days, you you decide that you're going to step away for the greater good of the business.
00:37:42
Admirable thing to do, some would say. Um it appears that it's one of the decisions you regret in hindsight getting to that place. So just gauging by your reaction then it seems like it's
00:37:54
something where you look back and think why did I yeah I should never have volunteered to
00:38:00
resign. I should never have volunteered to go. Um that was me saying um that the
00:38:09
survival of stling was was more important than me. And both things are important my part in
00:38:17
stling and the survival of stling. And what was it that changed your mind? Well, I think as I write in the book, I'd sort of retreated. I went to a
00:38:28
coffee shop, went to Starbucks and um met a guy that I'd seen in Starbucks every Sunday for the, you know, for the previous 10 years. And, you know, he's a tech entrepreneur. And he came to me and
00:38:42
he sat opposite me and he said, you know, chatted about things. And I said that I'd stepped away from
00:38:48
Stalling because that was the only way the business would succeed. And he said to me, "What are you going
00:38:54
to do next?" And I said, "I'm probably going to start another bank." And he said, "Well,
00:39:00
you don't have to start another bank. You can go back in and and take Stalin back."
00:39:08
And I realized that I'd made a mistake that I needed, you know, it I desperately wanted to create Stalling. I desperately wanted to lead Stalin and I
00:39:20
had to take Stalin back and I lit literally ran out of the coffee shop and I I can I can see I can see I can see the street in front of me now and I got
00:39:32
into the car, drove into London um and took Stalin back. And what did that mean taking it back? Uh it meant that I had to be you know
00:39:48
totally well I had to talk to people and say that I had a vision of creating something which is an organization that does things in a
00:40:00
right sort of way. You know, I'd been a banker for 30 odd years and I was ashamed to be a banker. And this idea of
00:40:08
Staling was to do things my way and I really wanted to lead the organization to where it is at the moment. So I had to make that clear and I took
00:40:24
back stalling. But the consequence was that I was on my own. I was on my own in the office. So, you walk back in the office and say to the team, I say to Tom that you're
00:40:37
withdrawing your resignation. No. Um, by then they'd refuse to accept my resignation. Uh, because, um,
00:40:49
it's a long story. I don't want to go into all the details, but they refused to accept it because, you know, of
00:40:54
certain things. Um, so I stepped in and took control of Stalling. And so, um, I heard around this time
00:41:01
you'd also been burgled at home and this kind of exacerbated, I think, some of the emotional components of decision-m.
00:41:08
Yeah. Is that accurate? Yeah. So, you know, this, you know, this happened around the time of of some
00:41:14
burglaries and, you know, and why, you know, why that's in the book is that we, you know, we're CEOs, we're leaders of businesses, we're entrepreneurs, but we're also human.
00:41:25
And a burglary is quite personal. And how did how did that impact you and your decision-m around that time that back then? Um I think it was tough around that time
00:41:40
but all issues and all things you do um in a business um are complex and that was an added
00:41:51
complication at that time. just adds more to the the mind and more things to think about and
00:41:58
um makes you feel a little bit unstable I guess burglar in your home I think has that kind of psychological
00:42:04
destabilization um while you were away you'd handed in your notice at stling and you'd left the office while you were
00:42:10
away I guess Tom's running the office per se is that accurate and um you know the way
00:42:18
that it's framed in press is that there's some kind of like coup that's gone on where you control of the
00:42:23
company's been seized from you in like a kind of low-key hostile man manner. Is that at all accurate?
00:42:30
I think you have to read the book. Yeah. You know, there's a um you know, I the book is the story of what happened. Um there were lots of notes and emails
00:42:42
taken at the time and this was all written from my notes uh and emails written at the time. And I think it's up to the readers to decide,
00:42:56
you know, what really went on. And you um you go in and you say, you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to resign. Um I want to lead this company. I've got a vision for the company in this future. And that means that you
00:43:08
have to fire Tom. Essentially, that's the decision you make. You say, "I'm the CEO still of Sterling Bank, so I'm going to I'm going to let let you go and I'm going to rebuild my own team." And the
00:43:21
way that, you know, when Tom sat here and spoke to me, he he says that you fired the whole team. Is that accurate?
00:43:27
Okay. Um the the story is that um we lost the funding. Um, you can't if you can't pay people, it's very unfair to let them work. Um, we were
00:43:40
very very honest with the people that unless we could raise funding, there weren't going to be any jobs. And I think it's documented extremely well in the book about all the ins and outs. And
00:43:54
it's quite a story. And so you lose funding because Tom's quitting. And obviously when people
00:44:01
invest in companies, they're investing in teams and peoples and CTO is a critical role, the person that's building the technology. So that's why the funding
00:44:07
goes through. And you realize at this point, I've got to basically build this thing back from scratch. Um I'm guessing
00:44:12
you had an inclination that there was a greater allegiance towards Tom with the with the existing cohort of people.
00:44:19
No, not really. No. No. Okay. It was more just you basically weren't going to be able to pay for them
00:44:25
because the funding had been pulled. Um Yeah. Yeah. So that day so you you know Tom leaves um the the team are are are let go as well and they go with Tom and
00:44:38
you know that starts the story of Monzo and as he's described it they start their own bank and
00:44:43
that's what we now call as Monzo that day after you walk into the office. So I'm guessing I don't know whether
00:44:49
it's a physical office or a metaphorical one but you walk in you're alone pretty much. Is there anyone else in the room?
00:44:55
Is there anyone else in stalling as an employee at this point? that this me just you and how did that feel going from you
00:45:02
know the climb climb we're building something here to ground zero I'm very good at picking myself up you
00:45:09
know sort of uh at that particular point um I was feeling well I haven't got the
00:45:15
responsibility now of of having to raise money to pay these people um I can take
00:45:22
my time now to find a new investor or I can build a new team and it Didn't take long before I was well is a gentleman called Alan
00:45:33
Chandler, friend of yours. Yeah. Who turned up two days later and at your office
00:45:38
and stayed and stayed working for no salary at all for nearly a year. What was um what had you built at that point in terms of on the day when Tom and the the new Monzo crowd had left?
00:45:51
What had you actually achieved as a company? What what was there technology? Who was there? No, nothing from the technology side had
00:45:57
been really done. Um, we had a banking application. So, when you when you um apply for a bank, you have to have a banking application. Yeah. And it was in boxes. So, you know, so we
00:46:09
had a banking application. We didn't really have much tech. Okay. So, your friend comes in, he
00:46:15
offers to do the P45s for the staff that have just left and just to sort of give you a hand.
00:46:20
Um, and then you start hiring again. A lot of people would quit at that point and a lot of people would give up. That's a pretty significant blow as far as I'm concerned. How many people had left in total?
00:46:32
16. 16 people. That's a pretty significant blow to, you know, might be time to go
00:46:37
back to the corporate world. No. Did that not cross your mind? Uh, not really. Um, I I'd got to a state
00:46:45
of having almost having a banking license. Um, I had the idea. I'd learned a lot. I knew what we needed to do.
00:46:57
It didn't take me long and I was starting again. You say that like it's so easy, like
00:47:03
it's just so effortless and I know it's not. It was humiliating. Okay. It was humiliating reading in the press what
00:47:09
had happened because the stories been told in the press and the stories being told now and not actually what happened. Um, but you know that's history. you got
00:47:21
to get on and you got to sort things out and you got to move on and I was Yeah, I
00:47:27
was up for it. I was going to do it again. You seem reluctant to uh correct false
00:47:34
stories here. That's clearly a decision you've made. Yeah, I think that what I don't want to
00:47:41
get into is he said that, you know, she said this, you know, I I've written a book which is um you know, which is a very accurate account of what happened
00:47:54
and my side of the story and people are allowed to have different sides of the same story.
00:48:00
That's okay. Um but I wanted to tell my story. M your friend that stopped by the office. Yeah. Um and gave you a hand. How emotionally
00:48:14
important was that? And how grateful are you to them? I will be forever ever grateful to Alan. Uh, I think that the one person to come
00:48:26
in and and be somebody who said, "Yep, this happened, but you know, yep, you're going to start again. That's fine." And I think one of the symbolic things that
00:48:38
happened was that in the early weeks, you know, when when they left, you know, Tom and the team had left all their
00:48:44
debris behind, you know, sort of, and they had a hell of a lot of debris. Um, uh, I went out one day to do some fundraising and when I came back, Allan had
00:48:56
collected all the all the mugs and the odd socks and, you know, the and, you know, all the various medications they
00:49:02
were all taking and and it cleared it all up and thrown it all away and the office was clear of the old world and we could start again. And that was quite
00:49:13
symbolic. And yeah, it was I sometimes think if Allan had not come in, you know, would it have been so easy? And I'll never
00:49:27
know. But that was the start of a new team. And you know that team, you know, the the A team and the team that left were the B team.
00:49:38
Um, there she is. was, you know, we we attracted people that were sort out stling. You know, this this
00:49:50
woman is going to build a bank and she's going to do all these things and they turned up and
00:49:57
they were awesome. Okay, so the team have left. Alan's cleaned out the office. Is there is
00:50:03
there not a moment in you where you you consider packing it in? Is there not a moment
00:50:09
where you think, do you know what? This is April the 1st. April the 1st. That's when, you know, that's when I
00:50:17
accidentally had an email from the team that left. Um, and that that was difficult. You accidentally had an email. Yeah. You weren't meant to be copied on it.
00:50:35
Uh, I don't know. I never know whether I was I was meant to be copied on it or not. Um, but they were making fun of me
00:50:43
and I thought, well, is that the day I'm going to give up? But I said, nope. You know, and I went back in the office the following day and carried on.
00:50:54
Making fun of you in terms of your management skills, your something you' done or said or very personal things. No, it's a question of, you know, you have to read the book about it, but it
00:51:06
was a prank about them being arrested. Um, but you have to read the story to understand this the the the nuance. But
00:51:13
that was the only day that I thought, you know, can I carry on? And that lasted an hour, but I was absolutely determined. Were you upset reading that email?
00:51:26
I was panicking about them. I was worried about them. Why? Um, I was worried about the fact
00:51:33
that they could be in real trouble. And yeah, I I hired these people. They were friends for years. Uh, they and I like them.
00:51:47
You can't suddenly um you can't suddenly cut off all connection with people that you worked with even though this thing had happened to me. Did it put a fire in your belly
00:52:02
that wasn't there before? Because, you know, events like that can they can kind of send you one or two ways. Oh, and
00:52:08
they can kind of send you I guess they can also send you both ways at the same time, but they typically if we're just kind of broadstrokes, they can they can
00:52:15
devastate you to the point where you you know don't get out of bed or they can motivate you to the point that you work
00:52:21
two times as hard. Nothing was going to stop succeeding after that happened. So it's still I still work twice as
00:52:34
hard. Yeah. And did you did you really did you were there moments like where you you know
00:52:41
you what you just put that extra effort in and you you know you became a little bit more determined because of that like
00:52:47
moments you can think of cuz I know I'm a human being and I don't care. If I was in that situation I swear to God I'd
00:52:53
have a picture of their face on the wall. My team would be hearing about it every 5 seconds. That's the guy I am.
00:52:59
Like it or not, I don't care. I do that about all the the competition we have. I It motivates me and it is what it is.
00:53:05
You don't have to like me. So, I'm I'm asking the question like did it did they become a a real significant competitive
00:53:13
driving force in your life. Okay. As a woman, you can't be bitter. Okay. You can't show that bitterness. Um
00:53:20
why you can't you you have to be you know you you have to internally put your energies into um into stling um you know stalling
00:53:32
stalling has succeeded stling is a successful business um that I'm terribly proud of and yes when I I take a lot of inspiration from other people's books
00:53:45
and whatever most most businesses have had a uh near-death moment. It it's it happens so often that the
00:53:58
best businesses, the best entrepreneurs have had times when they lost it. They almost lost it, but they recovered. This was mine and uh it played out very
00:54:11
publicly and um I learned a lot from it and I decided to continue and I think Stling and me are better for it.
00:54:26
when you started to rehire the new team. Yeah. I'm guessing you made different hiring decisions in terms of because of what
00:54:34
had happened, did it influence the type of people that you brought into the business for the chapter 2?
00:54:42
Not necessarily. I think that yeah, I I didn't set out to get um a different set of personalities.
00:54:54
I could focus on getting more qualified people and higher caliber people because
00:55:02
I had a better business proposition. It was a year in 18 months in, you know, it wasn't a blank sheet of paper. It was a fully formed proposition that had
00:55:16
almost raised money where we had an application for the banking license that was almost fully
00:55:22
formed. So it was less risk for those people coming in. Uh and I also had spent 18 months figuring this thing out.
00:55:35
I was better at selling the idea. So the second time around I could bring in a you know I don't want this to be derogatory on you know Tom or whatever.
00:55:46
I hired a a a higher caliber more appropriate set of people for the problem we had to solve. Okay. Yeah. I think that's I think that's a natural thing. I think I think even in you know
00:56:00
Monzo's business I'm pretty sure when I had the conversation with Tom he he speaks about hiring and you know hiring
00:56:05
a different caliber of person to meet an evolving business challenge especially I
00:56:11
know I know particular Monzo's case they did start bringing in people from like the banking world and stuff like that and even in my business I talk a lot
00:56:17
about how we did the exact same thing I at the very start didn't quite know the caliber of talent that I needed or the
00:56:23
you know their experience and in year three of my business, I realized that the first two one or two years of uh
00:56:30
hires that I'd made weren't adequately uh experienced in solving the problem I had to solve. And also the type and scale of problem you have to solve evolves, right? When you're one, two years old, it's a different set of
00:56:41
problems to when you're like a thousand employees, right? So that makes perfect sense. Pivotal moments then. So chapter two of Staling,
00:56:49
um funding. Yep. What was the pivotal moment with getting getting the money in the door? It was
00:56:55
very very difficult again. Uh yeah, it was very um but two years in uh I was approached by um a family office
00:57:05
and I wouldn't return the calls. Okay. You know, I was absolutely determined that I was going to have a VC, these
00:57:12
people I knew is going to be these well-known firms um or you know, my investment bankers are going to find me this sort of investor. Uh but I was approached by uh a uh family office um
00:57:26
that had seen uh an article about Tom in Bloomberg and had investigated what's going on in the new bank scene in the UK and wanted to talk to me and I started
00:57:41
conversations with them and it took a while for me to actually engage with them. I'd never heard of them and I
00:57:48
wasn't going to talk to people I didn't know. Anyway, I ended up going on a getting on a plane to the Bahamas.
00:57:54
Oh, that's when you know they're rich. It was a yacht, wasn't it? It was a yacht. And uh spent three days
00:58:01
being interrogated by a a gentleman called Harold Mcpike uh who was an alg algorithmic trader. Um, and uh, he
00:58:13
he asked me the most complex questions that anybody had ever asked. He was really into the detail. And yes, uh, at Harpers 4, um, I joined him on his
00:58:28
yacht. And how big was this yacht? It's a big yacht. More of a ship. It was a big yacht. Okay. Uh and uh yeah, he asked me lots
00:58:39
and lots of questions about me, about the business, and it was very very detailed. And at 11:15
00:58:51
in the evening, he offered me 48 million pounds for 66% of the company. 66%. M I read that he said he he said something
00:59:05
to you like uh I'm not going to give you the three million. Yeah. I was trying to raise three million. Okay. I was trying to raise 3 million.
00:59:12
That's all I needed was 3 million to get to getting the the banking license. So the idea was to raise 3 million and then
00:59:19
15 million then 30 million. I only wanted the 3 million. I hadn't raised a penny. The only money that gone into the
00:59:25
business was my money. So it was impossible to raise money. Uh, and he said, "Yeah." So he said, "No,
00:59:32
I'm not going to give you 3 million. I'm going to give you 48." Christ, that's like Chris Taran from He wants to be a millionaire. That's mad.
00:59:42
40. And how did you feel? So there's two real things here. That's a huge amount of money, but that's also 66% of your
00:59:48
business. Tough. And at that particular point, you know that all the other things that you're working on, all the other leads are
00:59:59
going to going to go. Yeah. You may have 40 50 different leads you're working on. You're going to accept this offer and sort of somebody else now controls the
01:00:10
company, but with 48 million, you have a situation where you can build the tech best tech in the world. So, no, I've been doing this for two years, and it
01:00:21
was really difficult, and I had somebody who really understood what I was going to do, was super intelligent,
01:00:33
that actually believed in my conviction I could do this, but I was have to give up 66%. But it would mean that I could build
01:00:47
something that nobody else had ever built. I mean, in that moment, he's valuing what is, and correct me if I'm wrong
01:00:59
here, essentially an idea. Yeah, it was a 16page deck. He's valuing a 16page deck at 72 million.
01:01:13
How long did you have to think about that decision? Probably about 30 seconds. Really? And how do you feel about it? Cuz a lot
01:01:24
of people they look back on those fundraising decisions. It seems that every startup entrepreneur regrets how
01:01:29
they value their bit business at the start because they always, especially when it becomes a multi-billion dollar company, they feel like they sold
01:01:35
themselves short. How do you feel about it? He's not listening. It's too busy in the Bahamas on this massive yacht. I think that it is more and more
01:01:47
important to actually create this vision. I was so excited that I could now start
01:01:56
and we eventually signed the deal on the 21st of December and submitted the banking license on the 22nd of December. It was finally, you know, we could we
01:02:10
could start. It was hugely exciting. Did you celebrate? Well, I couldn't actually celebrate because we didn't actually have a term sheet for another 3 days. So, you know,
01:02:23
it was on the Saturday night. I was flying back and I had the term sheet an hour before picking up the flight. But once you'd signed the term sheet and it was all signed off, did you No, you never you never celebrate term
01:02:36
sheets. Uh you celebrate getting the money in the bank. When the money came in the bank, did you celebrate?
01:02:41
Yeah. And how did that how did that look? Uh how did it look? You look you open up your app, Barclays,
01:02:47
whatever. Oh, 48 million. Yeah. It's It was very It was very exciting. It was very exciting. And it it allows you to do so much. Was it terrifying as
01:03:00
well? Was it scary? It's a lot of responsibilities. 48 million pounds of someone else's money.
01:03:06
Yeah. And that's why entrepreneurs that take external funding are so committed to do a good job. There's a huge amount of responsibility
01:03:17
to deliver. You can't just um you can't walk away from it once you got that investment. You have to deliver. It's so important. And how
01:03:28
much money have you raised in total now for Starling? 600700 600700 million pounds. Wow. I could have done so much with that. So what have you learned about raising
01:03:40
investment? Well that if you were to you know there'll be a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this um who have a lot of
01:03:46
like unhelpful stereotypes or thoughts about raising investment. God some of them will think
01:03:52
the only way to do it is like Dragon's Den, right? Um what would what would you tell them now having gone through this
01:03:57
process so many times? Take the money. Okay. So there's a huge amount of writ huge amount written about
01:04:05
you know you need to go for these sort of investors or those sort of investors and you need to pick your investor
01:04:11
whatever the vast majority of people can't pick where the investment's coming from. You know, only 1% of vent venture capital funding goes to women founders,
01:04:23
right? So, you know, if somebody offers you the money, you got to take it because it comes
01:04:30
around so so rarely. And a lot of people worry about valuation. Not relevant. You know, most businesses fail. Most entrepreneurs don't get their
01:04:41
businesses off the ground. Not because they don't have good ideas, not because they not good people, but they couldn't get the funding.
01:04:52
And do you think it's hard to raise money? Yeah, very hard. Venture capitalists tend to invest in
01:05:01
um businesses that look very very similar. You know, if you look at if you if you
01:05:07
read Paul Graham's works. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, he talks about really that teams need to look like this and and things are done in this sort of way.
01:05:19
You know, I would have never got any Y Combinator VC Paul Graham funding because I'm not that sort of entrepreneur. and a lot of investing by VCs.
01:05:34
They're looking for carbon copies of businesses they've invested in in the past and the really great ideas don't get that investment and real great ideas
01:05:46
from women founders don't get great in don't get significant investment. Interesting. But there's a lot of money out there, isn't there? Yeah, that's what I I've come to learn is
01:05:59
there is a lot of money out there. There's a lot of money out there when you're successful, right? Stalling now is is a big business, 1,600
01:06:07
people, 2 and a half million accounts, um doing interesting things. Um we have a reputation. Um but the fact that you know and occasionally
01:06:20
you know they publish how much money in the UK has gone to women founders and it's a lot of it's gone to me. Um, so, so I I think we have to be very
01:06:35
realistic that you get to a point where you're a success and people then want to
01:06:42
invest, but the majority of the time at Staling, it's been really tough. It's been really tough. So what when you reflect on your corporate career and you contrast it and compare it to your
01:06:55
entrepreneurial career, what was the really surprising tough part on a personal level? And this is really why I started this podcast. You know,
01:07:06
the all jobs are tough. A corporate job is very tough. I think that being an entrepreneur, it's far more
01:07:19
personal responsibility. As an entrepreneur, there's nobody that all the hiring decisions um somehow ended up with you making that first hiring
01:07:29
decision. You know, we have 1,600 people, but those, you know, somewhere up in the chain, I hired one of those
01:07:35
people, right, that made that hiring choice. Um anything that goes wrong is is my responsibility.
01:07:42
um and all mistakes are probably down to me. Okay. So, there's a lot of personal
01:07:47
responsibility and that responsibility gets more and more as more and more people depend on it. But isn't it fantastic?
01:07:59
Isn't it a wonderful buzz? Isn't it Isn't it wonderful to to have a platform really? I I fundamentally believe that financial
01:08:14
institutions lost their way and Stalin is doing the right thing and somehow people have said to me that I've created the organization that I wanted to run
01:08:27
because I quite like running organizations and I wanted to do things in a different
01:08:33
sort of way. So finally I'm running the organization that I've been wanting to run for the last 35 years
01:08:40
and that you wished exist as existed as a customer. Yeah, I think that you know I've been very lucky. I I've always had a great
01:08:47
relationship with money. I but the vast majority of people in this world have a bad relationship with money. It doesn't go well for them and you know
01:09:01
they deserve a better bank. I went into banking, you know, because I wanted to do interesting things. I wanted to come
01:09:08
to London and I wanted to be in tech, but I also wanted to do something that was respectable, worthwhile, doing the
01:09:16
right thing by people. And banks stopped doing that. And I'm much more comfortable being accountable for the organization
01:09:29
that is stalling. And it helped you to, I guess, alleviate that taxi cab shame you, yeah, reference where a taxi driver asks you what you do and you don't want to say
01:09:41
banker because there's so much stigma and shame around the sector. You're proud to talk about Yeah, I'm proud to talk what I do. I'm proud to talk about Yeah, I'm proud to
01:09:54
talk about what I do and what I stand for and having a bit of a platform to nudge things in the right way. You know, I I'm only a small cog in this whole
01:10:07
world, but if I can do my bit to make things fairer in a couple of segments, you know, I should do that and I'm enjoying doing it. You talked about the buck stopping with you.
01:10:21
All problems are your problems. All hiring decisions are ultimately lead back to you by X degrees of separation
01:10:28
when you're and especially you know the other part is the industry you're in is not an easy an easy industry. Customers
01:10:34
you have millions of like customers that are you're dealing with their money which is the one of the most emotional
01:10:40
sensitive things you can deal with with any customer. Um the the emotional toll must be extreme. I mean Tom sat here and it was the first window I'd had into how
01:10:52
brutal uh emotionally brutal fintech and managing a bank can be. Yeah. Managing a bank, you know. So yeah, I listened to what Tom said and
01:11:04
all the things that Tom said happen in all banks, right? That is what happens. But it's my job. It's what I do.
01:11:17
Um, it's what the people I work with do. And sometimes it's, you know, sometimes you read emails of
01:11:29
people that have been scammed out of their life savings. You have emails and you have cases where, you know, gamblers have lost all
01:11:39
their money. You have to deal with people who have lost their son in some tragic circumstances. We have a window on people's lives in
01:11:51
all sorts of circumstances. And we have to be responsible. We have to be empathetic and we have to guard
01:11:58
ourselves from the bad guys out there. What we do means that we touch people in all sorts of ways when they're most vulnerable. whether they've lost somebody, whether
01:12:10
they have, you know, they gambled all their money away or whether they've been scammed,
01:12:16
that's a responsibility. But it's not just me that has to take that responsibility. We have we have
01:12:23
hundreds of people that talk to customers every day that see customers when things are going well and things
01:12:29
are going badly. Um it takes a huge amount of energy and sometimes they're listening who calls and it really
01:12:36
impresses me how young people you know who are new to their careers who are so empathetic are so in touch with real people and really helping them you know I take my
01:12:50
hat off to them. What do you do to protect yourself mentally from the chaos of running such a big business that has such a you know is dealing with such a sensitive topic for people. What do you
01:13:04
how do you protect yourself from not losing your sanity? Yeah, I had a great mentor in this. My father my father um was brought up in a home where
01:13:19
um his father was in the first world war and he came back from the first world war with um what you now call post-traumatic stress syndrome and they didn't call it that then they called it
01:13:30
you know shell shock and he he was brought up in that home where his father was had good days and bad days and things were quite fragile
01:13:41
but he had my father had a great way of talking about your feelings and emotions and what you do to talk yourself up
01:13:52
and and how you make yourself happy. And we had a home where we talked about this and how you counted your blessings. We weren't religious at all, but how you
01:14:04
how you how you took energy from what's going right rather than what's going wrong.
01:14:11
And he was a great mentor. He taught me this. And I think the dedication in my book is all about, you know, thanking my parents for teaching me that happiness
01:14:24
is something that you can cultivate and treasure because not everybody has it. And I think when I am in a sort of situation where things are tough, you can do
01:14:39
things to change the chatter in your head to realize that you're not the center of
01:14:45
attention. You know, sometimes, you know, it's not about me, you know, not not everybody's looking at me.
01:14:52
Everybody's looking at their own life and thinking about their own problems. And
01:14:59
I am very very fortunate. I have a huge number of things that are going right for me and I have the
01:15:06
privilege of running stling and it is a privilege and there's lots of things going wrong and lots of pressures on me but it's a great privilege to have.
01:15:19
So do you see that as a your your sort of coping mechanism there as a almost like a almost like a childhood
01:15:26
disposition that was taught to you like it's a a perspective that kind of defaults to optimism seeing the glasses
01:15:32
half full defaulting to gratitude that's kind of acted as a protective yeah I think it is I'm still quite
01:15:39
excited by it all right sort of coming here today I was excited this is this is something which is look I am ever so fortunate to be a person who's doing
01:15:50
what I'm doing to talking to you. There's going to be broadcast. This is exciting.
01:15:56
Um, when I come back into London, you know, I'm driving back into London late at night and, you know, and I'm going
01:16:02
through the city. I'm I'm still excited. I'm like a kid that's coming to London for the first time. This is an exciting things to do. I'm
01:16:14
Yeah, I'm loving it all. Such a strange question to ask, but um that is somewhat unusual. It feels it
01:16:28
feels like Well, is it? Maybe it's just because the the conversation I had previously
01:16:35
was so, you know, like the red phone by the bed Tom described, you know. Yeah. I have a phone by the bed and it
01:16:40
never leaves the the Yeah. The phone is by the bed all the time and that's the like the emergency call
01:16:45
me if there's a crisis phone. Yeah, but that's the job I get paid for. There's a huge thing. There's a there's a huge amount of things that come with this job, you know. I, you know, I
01:16:58
appear in front of the Treasury Select Committee and get grilled. I, you know, I have this sort of grilling from you. I
01:17:05
I I I can talk to interesting people. I have the opportunity of building something I've always wanted. That's a huge huge
01:17:16
privilege. I really think that's a really underestimated defense mechanism against
01:17:22
life is if your default position is to view the you know to count your blessings as you say and view the half
01:17:28
as glass full then it's it's harder to slip into the trap of um my expectations are being unmet because of the difficulties of my life. And a lot of what we've discovered from this talking
01:17:41
to guests on this podcast are when your expectations of how the world is meant to be going go unmet, then you slip away
01:17:47
into unhappiness and misery and yeah, you seem to have a a default to gratitude essentially, which is
01:17:54
causing a very mentally sort of protective. Have you ever been to therapy? Have you ever had like any professional support in that regard?
01:18:00
No. No. I read a lot. I read um I read I read hundreds of books. I read, you know, I read every self-help book I get
01:18:13
my hands on. I read every single banking strategy book. I've always done it. I I love
01:18:21
understanding things. The the personal So this is interesting. One of the things that um you said well kind of two points is that you don't have work life
01:18:32
balance. Yeah. It's all it's just all work. Yeah. When people hear that they go oh they
01:18:38
sympathy like you know they think they think you're like I feel a similar way to to some degree. Maybe it's changed
01:18:44
recently but I that was my life and I don't want sympathy for it because I actually love what I'm doing every day.
01:18:50
But then, you know, I read into your story and there's sort of connected points there where you say um about how
01:18:57
women are sort of conditioned in our society to think happiness equals having 17 kids and a husband and how you would like to do you know buck that narrative.
01:19:08
Yeah. Can you talk to me about that? So like the personal I don't want to call it sacrifice because that's the loss of
01:19:13
something but the personal balance you have in your life and also you know you talk openly about not having kids.
01:19:20
Yeah. Um look you know sort of um you know the right man never came along. Mhm. Uh it wasn't something that I decided against.
01:19:32
Uh but there was never any assumption in the family home that I would get married or whatever. But the right man never
01:19:39
came along. And as far as children, I never made the decision not to have children. Uh just that um
01:19:48
sort of I was busy and then it was too late. M but I think that people compare um to quite an idilic state of you know marriage and two children and them all
01:20:02
living in a wonderful home and you know sort of everything being um fantasized life of a family. Um the majority of
01:20:11
families are not like that. Um I have I am really really happy that I've made the right decisions and yes it's a I get asked about it
01:20:27
occasionally and brave people ask about it you know people who are not brave trying to go around it
01:20:34
um yeah you know but one day per will marry you never know you know the right man
01:20:40
may come along um it's unlikely to happen with children. I always struggled in when I was running
01:20:46
my business to have any kind of relationship with anybody. I was a total failure cuz I was obsessed as you say
01:20:53
like work life balance. It was just all work. I was in the office sat in Sunday and I found it incredibly hard to find
01:20:59
someone that understood the peculiarity of my life dynamic. It was only upon leaving that business that I actually managed to like you know like
01:21:11
piggle something together like higgle the you know like put some pieces together which is probably resembles a relationship now but um
01:21:18
it's very difficult finding a man who's prepared to listen to me going on about my career for three hours. We've had it's not No, we've had a lot
01:21:29
of guests come here that are you know female founders that have said a very similar thing. Yeah. And also an interesting narrative which I I want to
01:21:35
talk about which is like men can be emasculated. Is this true? You Chrissy came here and she's a she's a successful fan and she said that yeah like men can be emasculated by the success of a a
01:21:49
woman if she's like bringing home the bacon or if she's, you know, the careerdriven one. Do you find this to be
01:21:55
true? Well, I you know I had a lot of coaching from friends before going out on a date and going for goodness sake
01:22:01
and don't ask for the bill. Okay. For goodness sake and don't you know don't leave the table to answer a call. Right.
01:22:08
So goodness. Yeah. But I got a really really good deal coming up. No, no, no, no. This is how it works, an okay, you go on a date
01:22:14
and you pretend he's he's awesome and you don't go off and answer your phone and you don't try and pay the bill. Okay, that's how it works. that how it works for most people. But you know,
01:22:29
sometimes work is more important. Wow. Oh god. And you I I read some as well that you said that you could write a separate book about your dating.
01:22:43
Yeah. Yeah. Dating uh experiences. Yeah. I've done a lot of that. Yeah. Do a lot of dating. Um
01:22:49
it doesn't work. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. and you you you pinpoint the way that you are in terms of your
01:22:56
like your focuses, your ambitions, your p, you know, all of that stuff as making
01:23:02
it difficult. That's the thing that makes it difficult. Look, if I put a lot of effort into it,
01:23:08
I would have probably made something work. Um the trouble is I put a lot of effort into my job and my career
01:23:15
and I probably get a huge amount of satisfaction about with that and it's sort of taken priority but that's great you know you know I've
01:23:27
I got a great job um you know I'm doing this sort of stuff you know you know what could be better you know sort of being in the situation where
01:23:38
you can talk about things and you and you have success. Yeah, it's it's good. As you reflect back on, you know, the the Ann that started her career as an entrepreneur and
01:23:50
the naivity that she must have undoubtedly had going, you know, what would you what was this is the some of
01:23:56
the key sort of pieces of advice you would impart on her and say, I just wish you knew this and be careful of this.
01:24:01
And I I I think it's the the question that people always give you the wrong sort of advice.
01:24:13
What I what I caution about is that there's a lot of people out there giving bad advice. Uh because when you ask somebody about what you should do or how you raise
01:24:25
fundraising or you know whatever you do about your business, they haven't got a good idea. So they give you something
01:24:32
because they feel as they can't say I don't know. So be cautious of those mentors that actually don't know anything. And there's so many people who have you
01:24:43
know the the the VC world is full of people who are you know you know finished their careers that are wandering around VC land trying to tell
01:24:55
you what things work and how things work. They've never run a business. A lot of that is absolute rubbish and you have to
01:25:02
just stop it. Um, one of the biggest lessons I learned is a lot of the things that I knew, what I was absolutely 100%
01:25:10
certain of was actually wrong, right? So, forget about it. The world's move on be relevant. And do you want to sell Starling Bank?
01:25:21
What's the plan? Do you want to, you know, you want to list it on the stock exchange? Do you want a a big incumbent
01:25:26
bank to come along and buy the company so you can sail off to the Bahamas with that guy on on the boat or
01:25:31
No, I think that will probably list in a couple of years time. Um, you know, I wanted to be I want to be important. I want Staling to be something that changes financial
01:25:42
services forever. I've enjoyed myself. You know, I'm I'm not ready to quit. This is I'm on a roll.
01:25:57
And you must have had some offers, right? Cuz you know a couple of people coming along saying brown envelope 100
01:26:03
mil, see you later. No, it's look it's a unique opportunity you know imagine put yourself in my shoes.
01:26:15
1981 I came to London to start my career in banking. and rocked up at Lloyd's Bank as a graduate trainee. Nowadays, you know, I'm I'm running an
01:26:28
important bank in the UK and I founded this bank and it's much better than the encumbered banks and it's at the start of its sort of 300
01:26:39
years rather than at the end of it. Yeah, it's incredibly exciting. Um, yeah, I have to pinch myself. It's really happening.
01:26:50
Yeah, you know, it's it's it's truly remarkable and you're right, I did give you a grilling there a bit on on a lot of the the key points because there is,
01:26:56
you know, there is such a interesting banking narrative, banking war narrative going on in the fintech space at the
01:27:02
moment and but you know, the overarching thing is just, you know, I find your story to be just so incredible and I find it to be like genuinely
01:27:08
unbelievable because you say it in such an effortless way. you say you talk about these events and
01:27:13
even the fundraising stuff and you know the stereotypes of being a female founder um that doesn't fit the existing
01:27:21
stereotypes of tech bros out in Silicon Valley that are all like 21 from Harvard and they're all dropouts and to
01:27:27
persevere against it all I suspect is significantly maybe 10x harder than you actually make out because like I know how hard it is anyway but then when the the deck is stacked against you and the
01:27:40
ways that I know it it is because I I understand stereotypes and the climate and especially in the banking world like what kind of lunatic starts a bank, right? And I I was I was fortunate
01:27:52
enough to be slightly privy to some of the early processes of like getting a B banking application because we had a lot
01:27:59
of fintech startups including banks like Monza approach us very early and ask us to help with the marketing. M
01:28:04
so and and when I was sitting in the rooms maybe five six years ago they're all talking about eventually getting their banking licenses or something and uh that corner was turned eventually
01:28:15
but it's just remarkable and it's unbelievable and there's very few entrepreneurs in the UK or really
01:28:21
anywhere in the world that I've encountered that really managed to take on a really stubborn incumbent in
01:28:29
the as it relates to the banking industry here. Spotify is one of the examples I sometimes think of
01:28:34
because there was no way you could make you know move move away the rights and the music rights and move it to digital and then charge people like so that again I I consider Daniel to be a
01:28:45
lunatic but yeah incredible yeah it's I consider this to be the same so yeah thank you for the inspiration
01:28:51
thank you for the courage and I think your story is one of you know it's one in you know a hundred million I do have
01:28:58
one request though and this is where the diary comes in Okay. Okay. So, um, so what we do with all of our guests when they come on the show is they all write a question in the diary for the
01:29:11
next guest, right? So, our last guest rose wrote a question for you. Do you really understand the purpose of your life here on Earth?
01:29:27
No, I don't. I think that I nobody ever sort of discovers their purpose until probably too late. Um, and I think thinking about that
01:29:42
question too hard is probably too difficult. I think the purpose of your life will only be discovered
01:29:53
once it's too late. You don't think it's what you're doing now. Would you suspect I think I'm on the start of a journey
01:30:04
rather than the end. I think I want to do more than just make Stalin the best bank in the world. I think Stalin will do its bit to help
01:30:18
people with their financial health. But I think it's also important to nudge society in the right direction. And I can do that with a platform of stalling
01:30:34
nudging society in the right direction in terms of yeah fairness. Fairness. Equality. Yes. I think the world is very unfair in lots of different ways. And it's not
01:30:45
just fair between countries. There's very very you know different people have different experiences this life. You
01:30:53
know, I have been extremely fortunate, but the girl growing up next door had probably had a very, very different life to me. And by an accident of birth,
01:31:06
we experience a very, very different life. I'm getting prime minister vibes. I have no no intention of becoming a politician. It's far too hard.
01:31:19
Okay. But you can, as you say, you refer to Staling as a platform and that's, you know, being able to influence the
01:31:24
electorate. Yeah. Is equally important um as as being the the puppet in charge. So,
01:31:30
I'm going to ask you to write a question in the book. Thank you so much for coming today. It's been a wonderful Thank you very much for inviting me. I
01:31:35
really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music]