Choose the right team

Bosses should always pick the right people, says Anne

Anne Gunther took the helm of Standard Life Bank in 2002.

Her career in banking, which she began as a graduate management trainee at NatWest in 1976, is a far cry from her degree in physics.

She joined Standard Life after a three year tenure at LloydsTSB where she honed her internet banking skills - as well as controlling a remit that covered everything from cash machines to independent financial advisers.

Under her guidance, the six-year-old bank moved into profit for the first time last year - one year ahead of plan.

What was your first car?

It was a Datsun 1200, as that was what was available - or rather what was cheap to run and wasn't going to fall apart.

I actually wanted a 2CV as it was fun and would have been cheaper and much more versatile.

What was your first job?

I was a lab technician at my old school. It was 1970-ish and I was paid 12 guineas a term (about £12.60).

But if you think about it, I was working for an hour before school for about 10 to 11 weeks at a time when my mates were slaving on a Saturday - so I had wonderful work-free weekends.

What was your first house?

It was a little maisonette in Northwich, Cheshire.

At the time I was working in Warrington and the place I picked gave me a chance to get to Manchester, likely to be the next place I worked, as it was halfway between the two.

I took out a mortgage of £21,000 for it. As I worked for a bank it was heavily subsidised, so I ended up paying interest of about 2.5% instead of the 7.8% mortgage rate at the time.

That meant I didn't borrow too much, but it was heavenly - a lovely estate of new-build houses.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

There are so many, but I suppose for me it comes down to sportsmen or women, especially as they are outside my industry.

So it would have to be Sir Steve Redgrave or Ellen MacArthur for me. They're both in similar categories with a pretty solitary job - well, Steve does have a very small team.

Ellen has a huge amount of self-confidence, and she's very good at working with a team and bringing general inspiration to them all.

Determination is also there in huge amounts for the pair of them.

Ellen has sheer guts to not only get into the sport against all the odds, but also to be able to live in a freezing cold boat on her own, and as such she has to be hugely focussed.

Then when she's working with a crew she's very gentle and incredibly competent. She doesn't exactly ask nicely for people to do things, but she will get them done without a problem, or barking orders.

That self-motivation and working with big teams is a huge skill for someone so young.

What's the best bit of business advice you've had?

Pick the right people.

You don't do anything without a team. So as a boss you need to learn the skill of getting under the skin of what that team is capable of - not just concentrating on the people you like or are comfortable with.

You need people who will bring something different to the team which allows you to develop your experience and expectations.

You have to trust your judgement, check they're going in the right direction and expect more than the average degree of competence to get it.

What can the government do to boost business?

There's a huge amount of regulation in the financial services world and the vast majority of it is sensibly based.

Now we're at a point where we need some consolidation. The industry and government should stop now and let the new rules and regulations filter through, then review them together in a year or so.

We need to make sure all the current guidelines work rather than making changes and new regulations - that's the key thing for the mortgage and general insurance industry.

What's the biggest challenge facing your business at the moment?

Making sure you provide great customer service and at a price you're prepared to afford.

If you use technology to help your business that can free up people to serve customers.

What's the big business story grabbing your interest at the moment?

The Abbey takeover story as it will be fascinating to see how Santander - if they're successful with their bid - will attempt to implement change that could affect the entire UK banking industry.

Other big finance names have made such changes, for example LloydsTSB. But what about the smaller banks? Will these changes to major High Street banks lead to all sorts of changes for the UK industry and its customers?

What was the proudest moment of your career?

I think it was breaking through the £10bn mortgage barrier when I was back at NatWest home loans in 1991.

I remember being really excited when banks began to grow in the mortgage business. Back then I was Marketing Director of NatWest home loans, and I suppose that's where I came of age.

It was a new team in an established business, and suddenly it was: "Hey look, excuse me we've made it".

And it looks like Standard Life Bank is about to do that again.

Or it could be my honorary doctorate from Edinburgh University.

Really that was given to me on the back of a lot of hard work that my team and I did at LloydsTSB on our customer calls technology.

We needed it, customers use it but we wanted a form of technology that used natural language.

There were some issues with the "push button" or "say yes/no" programmes that we were using, so it was a question of how to design it around new, "natural language" technology and how to use it.

We did use experts from Edinburgh University, who were great when it came to the hardware meeting the software - or customers.

They were very skilful. I was very, very proud to work with the team, and as a result we got the technology working for the telephony at LloydsTSB and on the ATM side.

This wasn't a question of growing the business; it was about helping to deliver great service for customers, without difficulty, using technology.

And corporate bravery also came into it hugely. We had to have the right expectations, then put our heads on the line and say: "We can do that."

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Standard Life Bank was set up in January 1998 as an offshoot of the UK insurer Standard Life.

The group - which employs 975 people - offers a range of services , including mortgages and savings facilities.

Last year it brought in profits of £4.6m for the year to November 2003 and currently has a mortgage book of over £9bn.