Interviewee Name: Kamel Hothi, Director
Company Name: Lloyds Banking Group
Website: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com
Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Kamel Hothi: I’ve been working for 32 years in the banking world. I’m a Director at Lloyds Banking Group. I’m married, I have two children and I live in a very strict Indian traditional family.
Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?
Kamel Hothi: Very, very busy. To be honest, there is no me-time. I tend to leave the house at about 6:30 to get into the office in London (UK). It’s about an hour and a half’s drive. I look after three remits – the Asian market, as well as the world’s internal infrastructure between us and corporate banking, and I also support the procurement for supply to the Group so we work on those, then tend to go home around 7:30, 8:00 pm. I arrive home at about 9 pm and head straight to the kitchen, and see what needs to be done. I get to bed around 12:00 am and I’m back again in the morning.
Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?
Kamel Hothi: I think that’s a difficult one. One goes through the peaks and troughs of life and I divide my life very much at work and home and I suppose at work I like to be very structured. I need to know exactly what I have to achieve at the end of the year, what success looks like for me, and see if I can carve that down into bite-sized chunks and monitor and track that. I’m a bit of a control freak, so as long as I know what I need to achieve that keeps me motivated because I know I’m achieving the bits that I need to do.
And at home, it’s making sure that the family gets attention, that they are on track. I’ve got two children so I ensure I’m giving them my time and that’s important to me so I try to do that on the weekend as much as I can, trying to find a couple of hours to make sure that I stay in touch with them. And if I know about their life that keeps me motivated that they are doing the right thing.
Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Kamel Hothi: Coming from a very different culture, we came from India to the UK without speaking a word of English and being brought up in a very traditional household where the females didn’t really have a career. So I was very fortunate to get into banking and convinced my parents to allow me to continue. But I had other aspirations and I wanted to go to university and I wanted to do further studying but I was very nervous about approaching those subjects with my parents because it’s such a complete no-no area. Now looking back, I wish I had the confidence to address these issues and have a conversation with them, partly to reassure them that I wasn’t going to rock the traditional boat, it was just that I had these burning ambitions that maybe my other siblings didn’t have. But certainly better communication with the family I think would have been much better for me when I was younger.
I feel I’ve still got so much more to give and I’m at a crossroads in my career now after 32 years in banking. I love educating people. I love mentoring and I’m certain that’s the route going forward in the future. I’d like to get involved with some charity. So I like bringing people together, and I work better in collaboration with businesses and business units, that’s where my skill is really, so I don’t work very well in silos. I think that’s where I want to go and develop further in my next stage of life.
Avil Beckford: What's the most important business or other discovery you've made in the past year?
Kamel Hothi: I suppose in banking I would say it’s IT (Information Technology). It has completely changed the way that we work, whether it’s from emailing to the online banking system, that’s certainly made the pace so much faster and much hungrier and somewhat easier to communicate. It also has some negative downfalls because when people are on holidays the Blackberry is constantly on, you’re always in touch, it’s a good thing but also a bad thing that the pace of change is so fast that you have to constantly be on the run. So I would say that IT is the biggest change in our industry.
Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?
Kamel Hothi:
- For banking I would say it’s what’s happened in the financial world. The world is shrinking so an impact in America or Asia will have a huge impact on our business so that’s something that’s even more crucial as we speak now.
- Regulation is getting really tight and very difficult to operate in the areas that we do.
- And now with times changing with acquisitions and mergers, I’ve gone through three in my lifetime in a huge organization. You never know what’s on the horizon with Asia growing so fast. Some of it is exciting but certainly it impacts the business and the branding and therefore lots of changes are happening.
Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?
Kamel Hothi: What I’m really good at is building strategies, so it’s really understanding what the business case is for a particular strategy, what are the barriers, how can these be overcome, finding and implementing the solution. That’s what makes me unique and that what I bring to the forefront. And that’s what I’m known for. I was the architect behind the Asian strategy for Lloyds Bank and I’m really proud of the legacy that I’ll hopefully leave behind.
Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?
Kamel Hothi: It is really two things. Working in a huge organization you do find that divisions tend to work in silos, and it’s very much about them and their particular business, whereas our customers only obviously see the whole brand. It’s ensuring that these divisions are working together, I would say that’s what I’m very good at. I tend to work with the whole group and think of the whole group as a whole and I totally empathize with the customer, and our customers are at the forefront of everything that I try to do.
This also leads to the second thing in that sometimes I get frustrated with my colleagues with the follow-through — when you are networking, making sure that the commitments that you’ve made, that they are followed through right to completion, and it’s the speed of follow through. I’m proud of myself to make sure that my credentials say that I’ll get back as quickly as I can once I’ve met all the promises that I’ve made.
Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?
Kamel Hothi: I come from a very Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle, that I live at home in a very traditional culture to the corporate world that I operate in, in the daytime job. That is the biggest challenge, balancing those two different worlds and keeping both of them content and the people that are my key stakeholders both at work and at home, and that they are aware of what I do and are appreciative of what I try to deliver.
It is a totally different world, from one end I’m standing and having a board meeting with a room full of men, and then going home and being the daughter-in-law in a very different household where it’s still a quite sexist environment, but it’s the culture I was brought up with. I would say that my biggest challenge is constantly battling with the differences and helping both of them move slowly forward into the world.
One of the things that’s helping me and helping others around me to understand the cultural differences and if I look at myself earlier, at my first 15 years in banking, it was hugely challenging. I felt I was really delivering the results, I felt I worked hard but just couldn’t understand why my colleagues were either promoted above me or quicker, and it wasn’t until later in life that I realized that it was really those first impressions and things and the subconscious behaviours you bring to work.
As I’ve said before, I come from a very traditional background where it is seen as keep your voice very feminine, behave very feminine and you don’t challenge back and shouldn’t be assertive, and you respect your elders. And so subconsciously you bring those behaviours into work and although I was working hard and producing 200 percent of my results, but because I was so respectful, and my voice was quite timid, my manager translated that to being, she is not hungry, she is not assertive enough to be a leader and therefore why move her, she is doing the results for me and not giving me a hard time. I won’t promote her.
So it’s really understanding what is in fact the opposite, and a number of times when I was early in my career would result in me becoming bitter and rather than challenging back, would either move divisions or find another role. Now I coach other ethnic minorities across the organization to help them understand their own differences, and then once you’ve understood what the differences are then you can make an informed choice, but I also educate line managers, mainstream managers that they may have a burning star amongst their employees, who may not be shining in their eyes as they see them but actually once you give them the empowerment, give them the go ahead, they could be one of their biggest talent pool amongst their employees.
Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.
Kamel Hothi: I would say my biggest break was from my line manager going back three lines ago, a gentleman by the name of Arif Mushtaq. He was parachuted in from another company into Lloyds Bank. I encountered him when I was setting up the effort for the Ethnic Minority Network, and he was the one who sponsored the event. It was great to meet Arif. When we started discussing the event and he heard some of my views and ideas he really encouraged me to take a risk. He had faith, he saw something in me that I suppose other people didn’t see and so that encouraged me to take a risk from the position. Yes I could have lost my job. He gave me a blank sheet of paper and said he would support me, and to be honest, that empowerment was the best gift I have ever had. It increased my confidence and since then I have never looked back, so I’m really grateful to Arif.
Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?
Kamel Hothi: Going on the personal front, both at work and at home in the early stages of my career was having the courage to stand up for myself. I knew that I had a burning ambition in my stomach and didn’t really know how to articulate it. That actually took me several years to get the strength to talk about it or to demonstrate that I wanted to do this, which wouldn’t rock the boat at home. But also at work, there were a number of promotions that I allowed to pass me by without questioning and challenging the lines, why they made the decisions. I had no information on their outcomes, so I would say that my biggest failure in the beginning is not talking up and giving myself the confidence to do that so that’s certainly something I’ve learned over the years and I’ve learned something about myself . And I learnt that when I’m contributing I’m adding value to the organization that I’m working for so that’s given me the confidence to be much more confident in what I do. And I found that therefore the people around me accepted what I do, and certainly at home my family where they were uncomfortable in the past now see it as something they are really proud of.
Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?
Kamel Hothi: One of my biggest disappointments is that my parents passed away many years ago, so they haven’t witnessed the change in myself and seen the achievements over the last decade that I have done both at work and at home, so that’s always going to be something that you can’t really undo. However, that also helped me to understand that every day is so precious, for me it’s making sure that my children are part of my journey, and they are certainly involved in my career. They encourage me, I encourage them. We talk a lot, I seek their advice on what I’m doing, the next steps I should be taking, so they actually feel they’re the ones that’s been supporting me so they are part of the whole equation.
So for me, my children are very important and we stick together and I want to be a part of their future. We talk a lot, we talk about their future, it’s something in the Indian community that’s not done often. Coming from a first generation where my father was very dominating, discussions that were open were very rare. That’s something we’ve hopefully undone in our family and that we’ve given our children the empowerment to say what they need to say but at the same time we are guarding them and steering them to what’s best for them as well.
Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?
Kamel Hothi: I think it’s taking the new role in corporate banking. The previous role I had to this one was very comfortable, and one that I was very familiar with. I had been working in that division for a number of years. I got a lot of kudos and people knew who I was and in coming into a division that I had never worked in before, hardly knew any of the executives there, it was a huge jump and starting from scratch again and having to prove myself. It was a tough decision, do I want an easier life or a tough life and I took the tough path but it was a challenge I was prepared to take because I could see the opportunity in that division to help them understand the market that I was being asked to come and help and support them in. That’s where I started the architecture of the Asian strategy and was delighted that it got embedded because it could have easily been thrown out. They accepted it and to this day they are still supporting it.
Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?
Kamel Hothi:
- I got married at the age of 19 and it was an arranged marriage, which completely changed my life. I was the youngest of six children from a very protective family and all of a sudden parachuted into a very tough environment at the tender age of 19, and in our culture you are married into the extended family, you do not marry an individual.
- The second was having my children. Balancing work, life, home and children was a huge, difficult task but at the same time it was one of the most rewarding things.
- The third was coming into corporate banking. I love the role, I love the division, and it has empowered me and opened so many opportunities. Networking in the Asian community, I have met so many special individuals through my daytime job. I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t made that particular decision.
Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?
Kamel Hothi: I would say that it’s writing the Asian strategy for Lloyds Group. It’s wonderful to educate a huge organization like ours to help them understand the Asian market, how to reach out to them, what products we need to develop, the cultural differences, and how to communicate with them, and now we’ve seen leaders in our field in the UK and to know that I was the architect behind that, and am now seen as an ambassador for the company, having attended hundreds of events each year. But at the same time, the reason I’m so proud is I think the community has done so much for the UK, achieved so much, many coming here with no money, working without speaking a word of English then they are now running multimillion pound companies and it’s wonderful through the work I do, through the events that I sponsor to be able to give them a platform to showcase these entrepreneurs who have done so much, and added so much to the UK.
Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?
Kamel Hothi: I have had a number of mentors I would say, and some were good and some were bad. Most were not what you call formal mentors in the beginning, but certainly people who you admire who you see can add value in different ways. My mother was a huge mentor to me, she helped me to shape my personal life, helped me to focus on the core things to look at, how to overcome when things are not quite going right. And at work, Arif Mushraq was a huge mentor to me, he helped me, and he understood what other people thought were weaknesses, were strengths and he had a real influence on my career.
Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?
Kamel Hothi: Believe in yourself and listen to your gut feelings. More people believed in me than I believed in myself. They could see that there was something there, the decisions I made through my career, were very well thought out and balanced. Believe in myself is the message that has come out over and over again.
Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?
Kamel Hothi: Really understand yourself. We can all get on this conveyor belt of pushing for a career, but step off the conveyor belt for a minute and assess where you want to get to. Where do you see yourself in five year’s time? And how do you get there and carve your path both at home and work. I do believe they go hand-in-hand because one can’t do without the other. So have two paths, one for work and one for home, and see them together. Do they match up? Is one conflicting with the other? Life will change accordingly but if you have some visible path to guide you then you can divide that into small chunks on how you are going to get there.
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