From all of us at the BSB, I’d like to wish you a healthy and prosperous new year.
It’s been a great privilege for me to have been part of the BSB’s journey since the outset, as a member of the BSB Board and now its new Chair. It’s remarkable how far the organisation has come over the last four years, as we peel back the layers to reveal the intersection between the behaviour of a firm and the behaviours of the people who work within it.
Organisational culture has always mattered but it’s in the spotlight just now as a critical factor, and will be even more so as we look ahead. Those firms that have chosen to join the BSB are already taking this challenge seriously by being open to the challenge, support and scrutiny that comes with membership.
Over recent months we have been analysing and discussing with our member firms the individual results which make up the fourth BSB Employee Survey. We will be publishing the aggregated results of the Survey in the next few weeks, giving an overall picture of the UK banking industry’s progress since 2016.
The BSB’s reach is also now expanding beyond banking and beyond the UK to help asset managers, insurers and others to manage and establish a culture of trust at their firms and we look forward to working with an increasingly wide range of firms in financial services in 2020.
We are also working with member firms and leading academics in areas such as behavioural science to bring theory and practice together to try to help firms develop new approaches to managing culture and behaviour.
On 14th January, I’m very much looking forward to joining Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) President and CEO John C. Williams in a discussion with experts working in behavioural science and associated disciplines, including psychology, law, finance and management, at the London School of Economics.
Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Dame Colette Bowe, for her hard and effective work establishing the BSB and its Board. I look forward to working with my Board colleagues, the BSB team and our member firms at this exciting time as, together, we grow even more in influence and impact.