Stephen Mitcham joined The Cambridge as a Customer Accounts Manager in 1990 having previously been the branch manager of Nationwide in, rather aptly, Mitcham.
He said: “When I started we had £200m of assets and were a sixth of the size we are now but there were more people doing admin because everything was manual and very labour intensive. It’s a world away from where we are today.
“When we introduced personal computers they had to be shared by two staff. Soon we realised everyone would need one.”
After six years Stephen was made System Support Manager and IT Manager but didn’t want to be pigeonholed as an ‘IT guy’ and took on the role of managing branch and sales which he did for around four years. It was about this time that the then Chief Executive Bob Jackson announced he would be retiring and it had always been his aim to make sure there were internal candidates eligible to take over.
Following an intense selection and interview process Stephen was made Chief Executive in 2007, which he describes as his personal highlight of his time with The Cambridge.
Stephen’s professional highlight came in 2011 with the rebranding of The Cambridge which, following a huge customer and staff listening exercise, saw a big unveiling at the flagship St Andrew’s Street branch.
He said: “I’ll admit I didn’t see the value of a rebrand at first but now I think it’s the best thing we’ve done. It was staggering to see how quickly the vibrancy turned around people’s perception of the Society from staid and old fashioned to something forward looking. And not just in the eyes of customers either but it really energised the people here.
“We really grew the business very quickly. In a three year period we grew the mortgage book by about 30% and started to further develop our overall customer offering. The last year and a half has been slower because we are upgrading all our IT systems to make sure we remain relevant and ready to adapt to the needs of future customers.”
With so many changes over the years it’s hard to predict what’s going to come next but one thing Stephen is sure about is that there will always be a need for real human interaction.
He says: “Customer expectations have changed a lot and people do more for themselves online. There are clearly a lot of things that are convenient to do online but when it comes to big decisions like mortgages there’s no substitute for dealing with a real person in real time whether this is over the phone or face to face.”
Image: Stephen pictured during Red Nose Day 1992.