Vicki Harris

Vicki Harris is the Chief Commercial Officer at Kensington Mortgages. Having joined the organisation in 2018, Harris is responsible for driving growth and innovation at the firm. Over the past few years, Harris believes her organisation has undergone not just a digital transformation but a business-wide one too. “When I joined, we took a step back and asked the question: what is the purpose of our organisation? We spent quite a lot of time understanding this and defining what makes us different - and from that, we updated our strategy and refreshed our brand and values,” she explains. “We then used that as the driving factor to kick off a range of initiatives across the business including building out our digital capabilities. A lot of it was around how we think about the business, our people and how we can be more agile in our decision-making. It was far broader than just digital, although that was a key part of it.”

Harris is an entrepreneurial leader that specialises in financial services and has a drive to innovate and help grow challenger brands. She is robust, energetic and pragmatic while being passionate about bringing customer-led culture to financial services and implementing a unique combination of commercial and operational experience to support companies looking to grow their business and transform the industry.

Harris believes that her own style as a leader has transformed over the years. “I see my role as a leader to provide the vision and guidance to people, it’s not about telling people what to do,” she explains. “If you have good people and you give them the right vision while communicating effectively and consistently then good people will do the right thing. My job is then about creating an environment that will empower them to deliver. It’s about ensuring they don’t have obstacles in the way and if they do then it’s important to unblock them. Most importantly, it’s about being open and honest. People can make mistakes but if they’re honest, we can go and fix them. Over the years, I have probably shifted more and more away from a command and control leadership style to a more inclusive, collaborative partnership type of style.”

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