Tough at the top

Ann Horan FCCA was the first female managing director of a Bank of Ireland group company. Now heading up the bank�s asset finance business, she tells Colette Steckel what it�s like being a woman at the front line

For all the progress made by women in developing their skills and taking charge of their careers, it�s still rare to find a top job occupied by anyone other than a man. �I think one of the issues about being a woman in business is that there is a lack of female role-models,� rues Ann Horan, managing director of Bank of Ireland Finance.

She speaks from experience. Appointed the first female managing director of a Bank of Ireland group company in 1997, and now in her current role heading up the bank�s asset finance business, Horan is the only woman at the bank in a senior front line position. �Banking is a male-dominated industry, there�s no doubt about that,� she states. �And for a woman to climb the career ladder and be successful in that kind of environment, it�s difficult.�

Horan notes that although her voice is heard and her opinions are valued by colleagues, she can still feel marginalised at times. �It�s really the subtle things that make it difficult for a woman to fit in at the top level - the discussions about football or sport over coffee for example.� She starts laughing. �I know absolutely nothing about football and although I attend the odd rugby international, I wouldn�t be able to talk about the game with any authority at all.�

Although she concedes that she was lucky in having mentors who supported and nurtured her ambition during her years in the banking industry, she says that her success came from doing things her way rather than emulating her male peers. �From my point of view, it was important to avoid following male role-models too much,� she says. �But I do have a certain toughness that perhaps belies my appearance.�

It is her steadfastness and her dogged pursuit of a challenge that has got Horan to where she is today: heading a group company that is a leading provider of asset finance in the Republic of Ireland, managing a loan book of 1.5bn euros and guiding a staff of 300. All of which is something of an achievement given that Horan admits she had little idea of what she wanted to become after finishing her school exams. She fell into banking and accounting purely by chance when the Central Bank, one of the many organisations to which she sent her resumé, took her on as a trainee in the accounting department. �I loved it from the start,� she recalls.

Horan wasted no time in sitting her banking exams and ACCA studies soon followed when she saw that a handful of colleagues with accounting qualifications were on the fast track to promotion. �Everyone in banking sits the banking exams, but with a professional qualification you get the tools to progress in your career. My ACCA qualification singled me out,� she says. Over the 12 years she spent at the Central Bank, she rose through the ranks, working in myriad departments and in various roles, earning promotions, keeping one step ahead of her peers and learning about the work of a regulator; something that has helped in her role on the other side of the fence in retail banking. �My career was never planned from the outset,� she remarks. �I worked hard and was motivated by the next challenge and the possibility of climbing just one more step on the career ladder.�

Luck played a part too. While studying for a Masters in Finance at Dublin City University, Horan was introduced to a Bank of Ireland director who was guest lecturing at the university. Although acquaintances from the Central Bank, Horan admits she was taken aback when she was offered a job. �At the time I thought, it�s probably now or never,� she says. She took on what she describes as a heavy technical role in compliance, which brought her financial skills to the fore. It also set the scene for her next role as head of group risk & compliance, where she spearheaded an innovative insurance programme that saved the bank over 20m euros over a five-year period. �I�d say that was probably one of my biggest achievements at the bank, not least because when I first mooted the project, people thought I wouldn�t be around for very long for taking such risks. It took a bit of time to persuade the bank, but I had a good boss who, although shocked to begin with, warmed to the idea.�

She made a name for herself as someone prepared to stick her neck out for the greater good of the business and also brought herself to the attention of the group CEO who appointed her managing director of commercial finance in 1997. It was her longed-for leap into management. �Although I�d been doing very technical roles in fairly narrow fields, I always wanted to get what I call a real job - one that involved seeing customers as well as managing staff and determining strategy.� But she admits that stepping into the shoes of managing director wasn�t easy. �I saw a huge difference in the emphasis of my role,� says Horan. �Up until that point, my career was mainly about my intelligence and technical know-how. As an MD, my role had now become all about people and, in terms of strategy, how to make the business grow.�

Part of her strategic vision for the commercial finance business (largely dealing with invoice financing) was to cut down on costs and find synergies with similar businesses. In 2000, when the bank was undergoing a review of its retail arm, Horan put forward a proposal to merge commercial finance with asset finance. Within days, she found herself heading the newly-combined Bank of Ireland Finance; a group company that was four times the size of her previous business and which posed new challenges. �I don�t think I appreciated at the time how very different the businesses were. I suddenly went from a relationship business with a small number of customers to one that was much more fast-paced, involving deals with a large customer-base. It was a challenging but interesting first year.�

Horan remains tight-lipped about how much contribution her group company makes to the bank�s (Retail Ireland, of which Bank of Ireland Finance is a part, contributed 32% of total profits of 1,177m euros in the year ended 31 March 2003), but she concedes that there are plenty of opportunities for growth, some of which aren�t necessarily in Ireland.

�The asset finance business in Ireland is mature and we have a high market share, so one of the key strategies for us is to look outside Ireland. With invoice financing, we have a high market share in Ireland but it�s a very under-developed product here compared to the UK. There�s still the perception that invoice discounting is just debt factoring in disguise, which of course it isn�t. The challenge is to raise awareness, which is what has happened successfully in the UK where invoice discounting has almost overtaken the overdraft as a short-term financing option. We are nowhere near that in Ireland.�

According to the Factors & Discounters Association, total turnover for FDA members in the UK and Ireland at the end of 2003 reached £117.1bn. In the same period, the Irish market recorded sales of 10.2bn euros. Unsurprisingly, Horan is bullish about invoice discounting taking a firm root in Ireland and potentially generating income for her group company. �There�s been exceptional growth over the past decade with turnover increasing year on year. It�s a trend that is set to continue,� she says.

Horan has already been promoting the invoice discounting industry in Ireland through her chairmanship of the FDA. Although serving as an industry network, the FDA also targets potential customers for its members through annual events. �One of the things the FDA is good at is giving the industry much-needed exposure to the wider business community,� notes Horan. Earlier this year, the FDA invited CEOs from some of the largest companies to a conference chaired by Horan. �That sort of event offers good development opportunities, especially in Ireland.�

Horan notes that the FDA chairmanship, which ended in June, was an unexpected appointment. �I have to say that, when the FDA Board asked if I wanted to be chairman, I just laughed and asked whether they were serious. I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that the FDA would never appoint an Irish person, or a woman for that matter. On a personal level, representing the industry is a great honour and hugely rewarding.�

An appreciation of how fortunate she has been in her career has prompted Horan to consider giving something back to the community. �Now that my two children are grown up, I have more free time on my hands, but I suppose what really started me thinking about voluntary work was my involvement at the Special Olympics in Dublin last year,� she says. �It was a fabulous experience but what I�d really like to do is be a part of something that uses my skills and experience,� she says. Perhaps recalling her own need for female role-models during her banking career, she cites mentoring as a possibility. �I would like to see greater participation of women at the top of our profession and in the business world in general.�

In the meantime, there�s the question of where her own professional future lies. As someone who has eagerly tackled every available challenge, it�s unlikely that Horan will sit still for long. �Who knows? There is at least one more challenge left in me,� she grins. �Watch this space.�