Lauren Langton

Hello, yes, well, my name is Lauren Langton.

I live in England's most northerly county, which is Northumberland, and I'm head of advocacy at a company called Incuto.

And we're a financial technology company, we serve customers in what is called the not-for-profit sector. So it's companies that don't make a profit to give out to people. They keep it in the business to help their customers. That's what not-for-profit means. It's a brilliant sector to work in.

Well, advocacy means actually making sure a voice is heard. And in my case, head of advocacy means I want the voice belonging to the credit unions, who are those not-for-profit companies I was talking about, to be heard.

They are part of the financial services industry that is really valuable to people that sometimes the banks can't help. So the banks on the high street that we all see and they're advertised on the TV and all sorts, they sometimes can't help people. So where do they go?

Well, these people can go to the credit unions. And so I spend my time trying to raise their profile for people that have never heard of a credit union. So that's what I spend my time doing.

Pleased to say I don't really have a typical day.

Some days I've got my job list that I have, the tasks that I've carried forward that I haven't done yet and all that sort of thing. So I'm looking at those.

So some days I'm reactive to what's going on. Some days I'm proactive because I'm thinking, I want to speak to this person, I want to go to this meeting, so I'm organising my day like that. But it all looks very different.

We're very heavily regulated in the financial services industry. So I can be speaking to regulators, I can be speaking to people in government, local government, like your local council, big main government, like the people at Westminster and beyond. I can be speaking to customers, potential customers, I can be speaking to academia.

So I get to speak to a whole range of people.

I think the best thing about my job is that I know and I've got the feeling that I'm not just doing a job. It's not a nine-to-five, it's not a five days a week.

I've got a purpose and the business that I work in has a purpose and it's mission led. Those things are very different to just being wanting to make money out of a business.

Having a purpose and having a mission is really, really rewarding. And if you've got a job that you care about, that really adds to your quality of life. It just makes you feel good.

Now, it's not always been that way. I've worked for many years and I can tell you a lot of the jobs that I've had, I haven't had that feeling. But now I've got that feeling and now that I've got it I really appreciate it.

Sometimes the world just doesn't want to work at the pace that you work, you know. To you, when you've got a purpose, when you believe in something, it's so obvious what we need to do. Why can't everyone see that, you think?

And I think that's the hardest thing, that I feel really frustrated sometimes.

Well, my main job when I left school was in a high street bank. So those big banks that you may know of, I worked for one of those for many years.

I did lots of different roles within the bank. I changed roles about every three to five years. And I liked each role I did better. So I was quite up for doing something new. I found myself being quite good at starting something from fresh.

I would never have thought that about me. Show initiative, they call it and all that sort of thing. But actually, I found that I was quite good at that. So when a new job role within the bank was advertised, I used to put my hand up and go for it. And I really enjoyed that.

I was there for over 30 years. But when I got made redundant, I just left the bank. I didn't think I would come back to finance. I thought I was going to do other things.

But everything I did all led me back to wanting to help people with their finances. I wanted to help people budget better, make better choices, know that they had alternatives.

And just because one financial institution like a bank said no, it wouldn't mean that everyone said no. And also, it doesn't mean just because someone says yes to you that you have to take that choice. There's other options.

So everything led me back to finance and I actually started a credit union with a few others, but I was the lead on it. And it really worked well.

I'm sure lots of people gave me advice when I was younger. I probably thought they were far too old to know what I was thinking.

I think I would have loved someone to say to me, just be brave, Lauren. Be brave. Say yes more often. Do something rather than nothing. You know, sometimes it's a massive thing. Just do it one step at a time.

As I say, do something rather than nothing. Try and find something that you're interested in and try and find a purpose or a belief because then you can look for an employer who can offer you a job that will fit what you're interested in and that makes such a difference.

If you can't find it, do something until you can and then maybe do it yourself. I think that's really what I would say.

And the last thing I would say on that advice, I would say that if someone had said to me that every single thing you do in your career, in your work life, will all add up to a bigger picture, and eventually your human story that only you have, your experience will be absolutely invaluable in many ways.

If someone had said that to me, I probably wouldn't have believed them and thought they were a bit... But it's absolutely true.