Voice of Experience: Birgit Neu, COO, Corporate Development, Global Banking and Markets, HSBC

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“All things are possible,” said Birgit Neu, COO, Corporate Development, Global Banking and Markets, HSBC. “This industry can be challenging, but if women really want it, it’s theirs to take if they grab it with both hands.”

Neu’s career path has led her through various industries and environments – from working with “blue-haired, mohawked” creatives to the more traditional financial industry. She is passionate about the importance of getting every part of an organization motivated toward gender equality – including the men.

“We need to have everybody take part in the conversation about gender equality,” she explained, “because everybody can make an impact.”

A Varied Career Path

Neu was born and raised in Philadelphia, and studied marketing and international business at New York University. She recalled, “When I started out, I didn’t have a clear idea about what I wanted to do, and I started working for the retail merchandizing division of Planet Hollywood.”

After that, she began working in book publishing, before finding her way into a number of dot-com businesses. “I just wanted to do what seemed cool at the time, and I didn’t realize financial services was what I wanted to do. I thought I was more creative, and didn’t understand how creative you can be in this industry.”

She continued, “But after the dot-com bubble burst, I realized I wanted to do something more serious. I joined Instinet, a broker firm in New York. I found it incredibly dynamic and interesting. I loved the pace.”

Neu was transferred to London, then back to New York, and then moved back to London. “I missed London too much. Eventually I ended up at HSBC four years ago,” she explained.

Currently, she said, the industry issue she is particularly energized by is the size of the female marketplace. “We keep seeing loads of data around the size of the female economy. As an industry, we’ve only dipped our toes in the water there.”

Taking Risks

“It seems minor,” Neu said, “But for me this was a great ‘a-ha’ moment. Early in my career in book publishing, when I was a very junior salesperson, we had moved fulfillments into a new warehouse – and we were really struggling. I sat in a meeting with C-level people, and they were all congratulating each other and talking about how great the move had gone – even though we were having so many issues on the front lines.”

She continued, “And, during the meeting, I said, ‘Actually it feels like everything is going wrong.’”

“I was afraid I had done the wrong thing, but it turned out to be the right thing to do. It set off a firestorm of activity to address the problems our clients were having.”

“That little moment in time gave me the courage and confidence to speak up and to always do the right thing. Doing the right thing by your clients is key.”

Cross-Gender Networking

“Right now, the most dynamic thing I’m working on at the moment is building our Balance employee network in the UK. Rather than creating a women’s network, we have a network focused on better gender balance at all levels of the organisation – which consists of women and men by design.”

She explained, “It seemed illogical to just have women solving the problem of getting women into senior positions, when men have so much responsibility for that issue.”

“We started out last year. It’s been a long journey, and it’s been really successful so far.” Neu, who is co-chairing the network, said it consists of about 400 people, and is about 30% male.

Additionally, she said, about two years ago she helped found Women on the Wharf, a network of networks founded by a group of individuals involved with the gender diversity initiatives of major firms in Canary Wharf in London. Participants include HSBC, Thomson Reuters, Morgan Stanley, Barcap, State Street, and Citi, among others. The network exists to help networks share best practices between companies, so they can understand what’s working and what’s not, and also to connect women to share experiences and ideas, enabling them to increase their impact in the work place.

Neu explained, “We’re all losing women at the same point in their careers, and we’re not necessarily losing them to each other. We’re losing them to outside the industry entirely.”

Women on the Wharf now includes 11 firms and continues to grow. “We want to support women and keep their talent in the industry.”

Additionally, HSBC’s Chairman Douglas Flint is a member of the 30 Percent Club, a group of FTSE 100 chairmen working together to achieve at least 30% representation of women on UK corporate boards in the next 5 years. Following a recent appointment, female representation on the main board of HSBC now stands at 23.5%, and HSBC fully expects to exceed the 25% target set by Lord Davies’ report on Women on Boards in the UK for 2015.

Advice for Women

“When I was first starting out, I wish I had known that career paths aren’t necessarily a straight line,” Neu said. “I had thought things would go horribly wrong because mine was not a straight line. My father has been with the same company since he was 16.”

“But actually, because I had varied experience, it made me more attractive to employers.”

As far as challenges for women in the industry, she said, “There are so many challenges and they have been well documented.” But, she continued, they haven’t always been approached in the most effective manner. “It’s frequently left to diversity teams in the HR department to take full responsibility to change things. But there are so many parts of organizations that have [a stake] and don’t understand what their role is.”

She continued, “We have to keep implementing this hard work at all levels to keep improving gender balance.”

Senior women are also key to getting women motivated and engaged. She said, “There are a lot of incredibly fantastic role models who take the time to develop the pipeline. And by supporting the pipeline, they will be supported as well.”

In Her Personal Time

Outside the office, Neu said that as a single mom, she spends as much time as possible with her four and a half year old son. In fact, she said, HSBC is working to address the issues that that parents face.

“We are making sure both men and women have the support to manage their families and work in a holistic way,” she explained.