CM October 2021

INTERVIEW
AUTHOR – Sean Feast FCICM
Growing up in Kent, Nigel
spent his leisure hours
either playing the trombone
or practicing Jiu-Jitsu.
Sadly, it was the latter
that did for the former
and scuppered a life in the
armed forces.
NIGEL Fields FCICM might
never have become a
credit manager. He’d
thought about being a
long-distance coach driver
like his father, and then
toyed with the idea of joining the Royal Air
Force (RAF) as a bandsman. In the end, he
went into supermarket management with
the Co-op before a friend tempted him
into the world of credit.
Growing up in Kent, Nigel spent his
leisure hours either playing the trombone
or practicing Jiu-Jitsu. Sadly, it was
the latter that did for the former and
scuppered a life in the armed forces: “I was
injured in a fight, badly dislocating my
knee in training and spending six weeks
in traction and a further six months in
recovery. As a result, I failed my medical
for the RAF, which was ironic because I
only wanted to play in the band!”
At school Nigel was offered little in the
way of careers advice but was encouraged
to take up computing: “This was in the
days of the Tandy TRS80 and I learned
Pascal and basic coding. I also learned
that I liked analysing data – it’s one of
those things that I find easy and enjoyable
– and that has certainly helped me in my
career in credit.”
TRAINEE MANAGER
Joining the Co-op as a trainee manager,
Nigel quickly accelerated up the ranks,
becoming one of the chain’s youngest
ever store managers at the tender age of
21. He got chatting to a friend who was
working as a sales-ledger clerk with GEC,
and shortly after Nigel was embarked on a
new career in credit management:
“I was 23 and joined a business called
AEI Cables in a billing role. Through my
employer I started studying for an AAT
qualification but having worked out that
the ICM qualification (as it was then) was
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / October 2021 / PAGE 21
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