An Interview With .... Elizabeth Corley
Elizabeth Corley, CBE, Vice-Chair of Allianz Global Investors, shares her reflections on combining two successful careers in finance and crime-writing with family life.
Q: What advice would you give to our members who are pursuing a City career and considering raising a family?
A: The most important thing is to be honest with yourself and with your partner about your desire to combine a career and family and to discuss the choices you might want to make. Then have a conversation with your company that you want to plan a family and a career. Hopefully the environment is supportive but if you have concerns go to the person/people you trust most.
Q: How do you envisage the world of work and employers changing over the next 10 years?
A: The biggest challenge facing businesses is the war for talent - recruiting and retaining. Which is why having good inclusive and family-friendly policies is vital. As baby-boomers retire, the way of working will be redefined to be more flexible but that requires real engagement and a rethinking of more rigid work practices. Not all roles can be flexible - so that means having the ability to switch and have 'non-linear' career paths.
Q: To what extent did you plan your career path from the outset vs let it evolve?
A: I did not plan from outset. Nor did I just go with the flow either. Typically I had plans that went a few years out at most. But I always had a sense that to make progress I had to be prepared to welcome change - either within the same employer or to move to a new one.
Q: What skills or qualities have been most valuable to you in your career to date?
A: I didn't go to university and I don't have a classic professional education but I have been a constant learner throughout my career and love learning - about new things and acquiring new skills. So probably that, plus curiosity, energy and a lot of humility about what I didn't know were what helped me move forward.
Q: What’s the toughest choice you have been faced with when juggling work commitments and your life outside of the financial sector?
A: There are lots of small choices - sacrifices if you like between work/career and other interests and responsibilities. But probably the biggest difficult choice was accepting a job that meant I would be out of the country for chunks of time when my mother was ill. She was the first to encourage me to take it and had always been supportive of my career, but it was still hard.
Q: What unfulfilled ambitions do you have?
A: Gosh there are loads! I have a sign on my kitchen wall that says 'More ideas than time'. But probably, to keep on writing books (but faster) and also to write beyond the crime genre.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self about progressing your career, what would it be?
A: That's a tough question but probably to learn earlier that not everyone is motivated the same way and to spend more time understanding what gets the best out of each person individually.
Q: What support or decisions have been most important to you in progressing to your executive roles?
A: Knowing when to take a risk and make a change. Risk-taking is vital and timing it well is very important.
Q: What advice would you offer to our members who are thinking of launching a second career alongside their City day job?
A: If it's a passion then do it with conviction - but it's hard to have one career and a family so to embark on a second be sure it's something you really want/must do.
Q: How does your career as a writer compare/contrast with your role running a global financial services business?
A: Writing is totally different. It is solitary whereas work is very social; I can delegate at work (!) but in writing that's impossible. There is no leverage beyond your personal effort. Where it is similar though is in the creativity and also the psychology of what really drives people (and plots!).
Originally Released On 02 July 2016