I am a Co-Founder and Chief Behavioural Scientist at Sybenetix. Originally I trained in London as a lawyer, went in-house into business early on and was on the board at Eli Lilly & Company Ltd before leaving to retrain as a business-focussed behavioural scientist. At Sybenetix my role is to help with the design of our Enterprise Behavioural Analytics software that analyses the behaviours of financial decision makers and provides tools to both improve the performance for those decisions makers and enable compliance officers to manage misconduct more effectively.
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Did you ever sit down and plan your career?
When I was 12 I loved watching Crown Court – that combined with a love of debating (possibly more accurate to say arguing) with my brother, and the fact I thought they earnt a lot of money, settled me on a career as a lawyer. The plan from there was obvious; law degree; law school and Articles in a law firm. I started as a trainee solicitor in my London law firm, with becoming a partner a firm expectation. 
Two years later having been seconded to Xerox during the traineeship (a right place right time moment), I was offered a job in-house in their Central & Eastern European Team. I duly signed up to the Final Salary Pension scheme and thought I’d be making my way up the ladder there for many years. Two years later I moved to Eli Lilly & Company Limited. I again signed up to the Pension scheme, but thought ‘let’s see where this takes me’.
Seven years later in a fascinating industry and multi-layered job I found I had a new interest emerging in behavioural science. Sparked from an idea from my brother – a fund manager – that analysing financial decision making and using behavioural science to enhance it was a real area of opportunity, I went back to university to retrain. That interest has grown into a passion over more years than I expected it to take, but when I left Lilly I did tell the Board I was leaving to do the job I am doing today, so there was an outline plan in that sense if the details of how I’ve gotten from A to B have taken a number of twists and turns.
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Have you faced any challenges along the way and if so, how did you deal with them?
Challenges come in many shapes and guises – from within the work itself to the culture of your organisation to outside of work. My biggest challenges have come from losing family members much too soon. Events like that though shape what’s important and how you will deal with them inside and outside of work, so for me there is learning to be had in everything.
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What advice would you give someone who wishes to move in to a leadership position for the first time?
I remember someone saying to me that when you move into leadership positions with the top teams you get to peak behind the curtain – meaning you see the leadership gods are still just normal people just like the rest of us, usually they just have more of the picture. It’s a core skill to be able to maintain the ability to relate to both leadership team and those you are leading. You have to find your own way of doing that, but again watch how others do it and notice the impact it has.
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When faced with two equally-qualified candidates, how would you decide who should have the role?
As a behavioural scientist I can honestly say that no two candidates will be identical even if they have the same qualifications on paper. They will have differences in how they approach problems, team mates, clients and so on. These can all be tested systematically provided you have analysed the role they will be doing, distilled the knowledge skills and abilities that will be required as well as the cultural fit with the organisation. Taking a multi-layered approach means you are far more likely to find great people who will fit your role, but for whom the role and organisation will also best fit.
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How do you manage your own boss?
As part of the senior management team I don’t have one in the formal sense. The approach that works for me though is to remain open and continue to ask questions to ensure I’m informed and understand the issues. This helps me know when to challenge and when things are outside my areas of expertise. I also try to keep as much humour in the relationship as possible
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On a typical workday, how do you start your day and how does it end?
Usually both ends are on the train although the beginning is always with coffee! It’s a great opportunity to think – I use it try to make sense of the latest challenges and to see where dots join and diverge.
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What advice can you give to our members about raising their profiles within their own organisations?
Be interested and take opportunities to learn more whenever and wherever they arise – especially when it’s outside your usual role’s parameters. Speak to people you don’t normally speak to; go to talks because they’re on – there are always little nuggets in everything you hear and see, and it means you have a broader ability to speak to people across organisations and industries.
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How have you benefited from coaching or mentoring?
The first and only coach I’ve had actually really set me on the path I’m on. I’d been given a coaching package as part of the senior team program – we dealt with the career planning piece in session one and had five sessions left. In those sessions he really introduced me to behavioural science and the impact it can have in organisations. I’ve not had ‘official’ mentors, but again I learn from everyone I get the opportunity to work with both within my organisation and outside it.
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Do you think networking is important and if so, what 3 tips would you give to a newbee networker?
Networking is incredibly important. There have been studies showing how connected people are in our world and you never know when opportunities will arise. Just a few weeks ago I was in Hong Kong with a CEO from an Australian company who gasped as he saw one of his great friends from the UK on the slide about our advisory panels!
Three tips would be:
- Go for it! Go up to the speakers at events and ask them questions.
- Join in group discussions and listen for the opportunities to connect.
- Follow up with people you’ve met for subsequent discussions to keep the relationships alive.
- What does the future hold for you?
The future of Sybenetix is incredibly exciting. We are breaking new ground in behavioural analytics, really bringing the knowledge from academia into the messy real-world workplace. I am working with an amazing team of very talented people in an industry full of very smart people who are actually really driven to improve standards – so the future looks very exciting indeed.
