Business Women’s Association Magazine
August 2006

A little more than a year ago, June Tudhope took over as Managing Director of Nedbank Home Loans.  One of her first meetings was with the Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu.  The first thing Minister Sisulu said on meeting June was ‘I think Tom Boardman is a very smart man.’  Asked why she thought so, the Minister replied ‘because housing is woman’s work.’

When you look at what June and her team have accomplished with Nedbank home Loans in the months since she took up the reigns, it would appear that the honourable Minister was spot on.

At the time June took up the reigns of its home loans division, Nedbank was undergoing a period of recovery and transition.  Home loans had not escaped the negative effects of this process and the business was far from competitive in terms of its service delivery to clients.  Thanks, especially, to cumbersome and slow internal processing, particularly of valuations and credit assessments. 

All these elements had conspired over the years to enable the bank’s competitors to take the lead in the industry, while also allowing them to steal away a hefty chunk of the overall home loans market from Nedbank.

June explains that the loss of market share and competitiveness was the result of a combination of factors.   Nedbank had disbanded the central home loans area and absorbed the various functions into a number of different business areas.  After his appointment as Managing Director of Nedbank Retail, Rob Shuter, decided that the best way to regain lost market share would be to first regain a defined home loans focus and this was best achieved by bringing the home loans functions back together under a central Nedbank Home Loans banner. 

Shuter approached June to head up the new business and almost 1000 people were transferred from various divisions throughout the bank to make up the newly re-formed home loans division.  The first thing June did was to appoint a management team for the business that was representative of the diversity of both the organisation and its clients in terms of sex and race.

But the task facing June and her enthusiastic new team was no easy one.  The process of transition and consolidation within the Nedbank Group had resulted in a severe lack of motivation amongst employees, many of whom had been required to re-apply for their jobs in recent months, resulting in no small amount of mistrust in any new initiatives.  In addition, the new business had no established sense of identity and no internal culture, having taken people from various areas in Nedbank and thrown them all together in a completely new and uncertain environment. 

However, June was undeterred.  Together with what she affectionately refers to as her ‘motley crew’ she bravely set out to overcome the assortment of pay, race, and gender issues facing the new division.  Recognising that the success of the business depended entirely on the people working in it, June and her management team made a strategic decision to make top class people practices their first priority. 

In addition, communication was recognised as a key component in the success of the business.  “We made a promise to all our staff that we would never lie to them, be dishonest in our dealings with them, or keep information from them that it was their right to know.’  June explains, ‘I’m very proud of the fact that as a team, we have kept that promise, and I believe that this has gone a long way to building a culture of honesty and trust throughout our business.’

The next step for the new management team was to assess the reasons for the drop in market share and what was required to redress the situation.  Poor turnaround times, uncompetitive pricing, inappropriate credit modelling, and poor relationships with mortgage originators were recognised as the three key issues contributing to the underperformance of Nedbank Home Loans in relation to its competitors. 

The team immediately set out to correct these issues through a process of ‘getting the basics right’.  They improved their processes to cut down turnaround times dramatically, introduced risk-based pricing to allow for the individual risk profiling of every credit applicant, and worked hard to restore their relationships with mortgage originators.

It’s approach that has undoubtedly worked for Nedbank Home Loans, as evidenced by the reversal of market share losses that the business is currently enjoying. 

A true team player, June is quick to point out that this turnaround in Nedbank Home Loans has been the result of the hard work of more that 1000 people.  And she’s confident that it’s not over yet.  ‘We have seen some excellent results, but we still have a lot of work to do,’ she explains, ‘now that the market losses have been stopped, it’s time to reverse the trend and begin to gain market share for Nedbank so that it can once again enjoy the status it previously held as a leader in the South African home loans industry.’

Many South Africans would argue that what makes June’s success story all the more exceptional is the fact that these achievements have been delivered in what has long been a male-dominated industry.  Asked whether she has had to overcome gender issues in the execution of her duties within Nedbank Home Loans, she says this has never really been a problem.  ‘Personally, I have never experienced a situation in which I felt I was being discriminated against because of my gender,’ she says, ‘however, I have encountered one or two instances of such discrimination amongst the women with whom I have worked.’

“Having worked in the UK for a number of years before taking up this position, I’m probably not as sensitive or attuned to the issues around gender discrimination as may be the case with many South African women in business,’ she says, ‘in fact it came as a real shock to me to discover that I was seen as some kind of a female role model by many of the women in Nedbank.’

However,  June explains that she does appreciate that against the South African backdrop of a historically male-dominated business world, women here have had to overcome a lot of resistance – and she recognises that there remain gender issues that must be, and are being, actively addressed.

As far as June is concerned, the key to resolving many of the gender issues lies in the acceptance, by both men and women, that they are different and, as such, they have different ways of adding value to any business.  ‘It’s important that women in this country realise that they are not required to compete with men or have the same skills and abilities in order to succeed in business,’ she explains, ‘the simple fact is that we bring aspects to business that men can’t, and vice versa – and by valuing and harnessing this diversity, we all contribute to greater business success.’