Voice of Experience: Christy Bremner, Thomson Financial
Voice of Experience: Women who have made it, on their own terms, reaching the upper echelons of the professional world. TheGlassHammer is delighted to give a platform to those women who have blazed a trail…Christy Roux Bremner, Global MD, PORTIA, Thomson Financial, gives us her career insights.
Why Financial Services, Christy?
Basically I run a software business that delivers solutions to the financial services industry. I don’t think I can say that I chose this industry – I believe that there was an element of luck, fate or destiny – originally I studied law, but after I qualified I got a job in financial services in Colorado.
I am a driven person. ‘Getting to that place’ is important to me. I like to see my business grow, and I enjoy the people, the industry and the products that we develop. There’s been a great deal of opportunity, and the last three years have been particularly successful, so I’m seeing progress, which is good.
Would you describe your career as conventional?
Not really, I think my job is unique and definitely not a typical job for a woman with three young kids – under seven.
Has any particular individual inspired you in your career?
I would say that the woman who originally hired me at Thomson inspired me the most. She taught me most of the important lessons early on in my career: the soft skills side of the equation – communication, relationships, etc. To this day she remains a close friend, even though she has left her high powered career path to bring up her daughters.
Brief words of wisdom for TheGlasshammer readers?
- Don’t think that your job is just a recipe. If you do, you won’t succeed.
- Be innovative, and don’t be afraid of conflict – learn how to deal with it.
- Be self-critical, constantly self-evaluate yourself.
- Always watch and learn from people who do things well, whose business behaviour you can emulate.
What advice would you give women to get ahead in business?
I think perhaps some women have unrealistic expectations of their working lives, and don’t appreciate the trade-off that you have to make in order to achieve a proper work-life balance.
If you really want to succeed, you have to do the job above and beyond expectations, and sometimes that means putting in the longer hours and extra commitment.
You can’t have a regimented schedule if you’re at a senior level.It helps if you work for a truly equal opportunity employer, which is where I am very lucky – Thomsons is very good about all aspects of equal opportunities, and there is no pay discrimination here.
I also have an executive coach, which helps me keep the performance evaluation aspect of my role focussed.
What sort of person do you want to employ?
Whenever I’m selecting people I always look for someone with innate leadership ability: someone who is capable of picking things up quickly and dealing with difficult situations without losing their cool.
You need to be able to take the mess and figure out how to organise things if you want to get ahead in any business.
How do you deal with jerks?
I’m a ‘wyswyg’ (what you see is what you get) type person. I’m pretty straight up, and although jerks can come in many shapes and forms, they’d pretty soon know what I thought of jerk behaviour around my office.
Actually, I prefer to think of people as being difficult, or challenging, rather than as jerks. Many of these types of people are very change-averse: they’d set their workplace in aspic. It takes some doing, but you can usually convince them to adapt, even if only a little.
When do you think you will retire?
I don’t believe I will retire, in the conventional sense. I enjoy being busy, and I’d always seek out a worthy cause, something mentally challenging, perhaps in the charity sector.
Books on Christy’s bookshelf:
Good to great by Jim Collins
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton (great basics on running good businesses and negotiation)
