I was working for accounting software firm Sage, when I became disillusioned with the drive of the pound sign within the corporate arena. This lead to an impulse trip to India and a change in my overall perspective on what was important in life.

Unfortunately on my return, I needed a job, and quick. I ended taking a temporary role with the Insolvency Service dealing with personal debt cases in the UK I don’t think it needs to be said that this far from met my desire for a more fulfilling purpose in my employment.
As my contract came to an end, the agency looking after me told me about a role at Shared Interest, a fair trade lending Co-operative. I had a vague understanding of fair trade but no idea of Shared Interest…it sounded good all the same.

So in February 2005 I took a temporary role to help with the Customer Service and Business Development teams. I must have done something right as in June 2005 I was offered a permanent role as Account Manager for our customers in North America, Asia and the Pacific Rim. Since then I have not looked back, being promoted to Senior Account Manager in 2008 and more recently to Credit and Services Manager in March 2010. My new role involves the management of the Customer Services team and the ongoing monitoring of the societies risk exposures. To complement the change to my role, the Society is also funding me through a course with the Institute of Risk Management (IRM).

The main responsibility of the Customer Service Team is managing the money that we have loaned to our buyer and producer customers which right now is around £20 million to just over 100 organisations. We facilitate payments daily on behalf of our buyer partners to producers in over 60 countries worldwide. This lending is the main source of our income enabling the organisation to remain sustainable.

With this lending comes a high degree of unsecured risk and it is our responsibility to manage this accordingly. There are many tools we use internally but the most efficient is the relationships we have established with our customers. To assist the building of these relationships each Account Manager has the opportunity to annually visit their customers, in my time I have been fortunate enough to visit the US twice, Canada, Thailand, Vietnam, Bali and France as well as occasional trips to London. Right now I am in the process of organising a further trip to the US and Canada later in the year.

The misconception a lot of people I speak with have is that we are a large organisation, however in my time there has never been more than 30 members of staff. So although my main focus has to be on managing my customers and coordinating the team, I am also involved in several cross team projects. Since being employed at Shared Interest I have been involved in 3 years of social reporting, been involved in the annual financial audit; worked with the Shared Interest Foundation in distributing grants and I regularly work with our communications team; providing information and case studies for the publications we provide to our members and customers. Right now I am preparing for a 4th year of social reporting, developing a new database with our IT team and working with our business development team in exploring new opportunities in Asia. A diverse remit for the year I am sure you will agree.

I could not imagine going back to working in a profit driven corporate environment as the social rewards at Shared Interest are high, simply receiving an email or call from a producer expressing their gratitude easily makes it all worthwhile.

Click here to learn how you can invest in fair trade. Click here to donate to the Shared Interest Foundation