HSBC UK serves around 14.5 million customers across the UK, supported by 32,000 colleagues. HSBC UK offers a complete range of retail banking and wealth management to personal and private banking customers, as well as commercial banking for small to medium businesses and large corporates. 

Relationship Director for HSBC UK’s large corporate clients, Gail Booker, has been at the firm since joining the graduate programme in 2003. Having worked her way up within the business, Gail who is based at HSBC UK’s Newcastle office, has benefitted from ongoing development throughout her career which has provided lots of opportunities within the bank. Finding a passion for Commercial Banking, Gail has worked with businesses of all sizes. Her current role, involves working with some of the largest clients in the region to provide bespoke financial solutions supporting their plans and aspirations. 

Having worked with the Captured programme for the last three years, HSBC UK has maintained its relationship with Newcastle University Business School supporting a number of initiatives including the University’s emerging talent programme, employability week and getting involved with the ‘business in action’ week for the MBA programme.

During the latest 2019 Captured programme, Gail was partnered with Leanne Pearce, founder and creative director of Thought Foundation.

Gail Booker, Relationship Director at HSBC UK, said:  

“I have lived in the North East most of my life and I’m passionate about its success as a region. Small businesses play an exceptionally important part in our local economy and Captured provides an opportunity to share our own perspective and insights from working at a large organisation. 

“HSBC UK is proud to support our clients across the North East of England and strive to deepen the relationships we have with them to ensure we can support their growth and ambitions. Working with Newcastle University means we can support an institution which is deeply embedded in the region and contributes a great deal to society.  

“The Captured programme provides an excellent opportunity for our managers to share their insights and expertise with small businesses and in turn, our managers have an opportunity to enhance their mentoring skills too.” 

Based in Birtley, the Thought Foundation has an ethos to encourage exciting ways to look at the world. Having developed the Thought Foundation LEARN education programme, the business promotes arts engagement and creative explorations for young people and adults in the North East through workshops and projects. 

Gail added:

“It was a pleasure to meet Leanne and to spend time with such a creative individual. Her business has many elements, all of which are built on the same core values, embodied by a strong ethos that drives her decision making.

“Listening to Leanne’s story and plans for the future was very inspiring. Some of the challenges we discussed were around elevating the profile of the business and diversifying into new markets to increase occupancy and to help the business meet its growth aspirations.

“My role was to listen and act as a sounding board for new ideas, to use my own knowledge and insight of the business world and to offer alternative suggestions to explore. As discussions progressed, we looked at defining their value proposition and how this might be attractive to new markets, as well as identifying target markets and appropriate communication channels for those audiences.”

Reflecting on HSBC UK’s involvement in the programme overall.

Gail concluded:

“The Captured programme is a great way to support entrepreneurship in the region, better understand the challenges that small businesses face and to provide a different perspective which hopefully assists the business with their strategy and decision making.

“A number of managers have participated in the programme over the last three years and this has provided a good opportunity to develop their own mentoring skills, share ideas and strategies, make new contacts and better understand the challenges faced by small businesses. 

“A number were apprehensive around the value they could add in the time allotted for discussion and debate. However, having participated in the programme, they found that the experience and insight they could bring to the table was extremely well received and that by providing an alternative perspective, the businesses were better placed to make more informed decisions around their strategy or business challenge.” 

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Unfortunately, since the publication of this case study, The Thought Foundation, which was the small business that Gail Booker worked with, has had to close permanently as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions. This is such sad news for both the owners Leanne and Gareth and also the community that they served with their fantastic cafe, galery and event space.