January and February 2016 Credit Management

INTERVIEW
• LOCAL WORLD •
ON A WING AND
A PRAYER
Mark Mackey of Local World explains to Sean Feast how helicopters and Catch 22
relate to the world of credit management.
AS a young man, Mark Mackey
wanted to become a pilot. The flying
world’s (temporary) loss, however,
was the credit industry’s gain, as
Mark’s appetite for ‘being the best’ has
seen him become one of a growing army of
keen advocates of the Chartered Institute
of Credit Management, its corporate and
personal qualifications, and its awards.
Originally from Leicester and educated
locally, his dreams of flying very quickly
gave way to the harsh realities of working
life: “I opted for the ‘safe’ option,” he
says, “joining NatWest as a management
development trainee in the days when
all private and business banking was
conducted in-branch.”
It was at NatWest that Mark learned
to appreciate the different forms of back
office/front office functions within a bank,
the benefits of a professional qualification
and its role in career enhancement. He
took his ACIB (Associate of the Chartered
Institute of Bankers) exams that covered
various elements of economics, accounting
and the law and quickly began to rise
through the ranks, becoming a branch
manager at the age of 29.
It was difficult time for the industry,
as Mark recalls: “We were moving to a
‘new concept’ of banking and part of my
role was to help transition the move from
the ‘traditional’ branch to a more modern
environment. That meant closing some
branches down, which was poorly received,
but we quickly turned things around.”
Clearly Mark’s talents were spotted, and
he was promoted to run the bank’s flagship
branch in the city centre into which three
other branch managers reported. He soon
became an area manager, before actively
seeking a role in HR: “People development
was a big thing then as now,” he says, “and
it was a key passion of mine.
“We developed new ways of inspiring
our teams, setting them clear objectives
and giving them the support they needed
to achieve their goals. We showed our area
managers how they could help their staff
deliver what we referred to as ‘the people
agenda’ and ‘First for staff’.”
As a strong advocate of HR from his
early days, Mark had already attained a
CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel
Development) qualification that, he insists,
is not about hugging your fellow worker:
“It’s not fluffy,” he laughs. “It’s about the
way that you manage people, finding out
which approach is best and when, so that
you help them attain their own objectives
and improve performance as a group.
“Certainly HR is about helping a
business to succeed, but it’s also about
making sure you take your people with you
on the journey, and that includes having a
tough conversation or the odd skirmish or
two along the way. It is, if you like, ‘business
enabling through people’.”
After his spell within HR, Mark returned
to branch management at a senior level,
before again morphing into a dedicated
customer services role, establishing back
office teams to manage transactional work,
away from the front office. And then came
the crash and Mark was made redundant.
The recognised standard in credit management
www.cicm.com Jan/Feb 2016 25