Building society with ambition for growth

Stephen Karle, chief executive of the West Bromwich Building Society, talks to deputy business editor Simon Penfold about his ambitions for the business he leads, the borough where it is based and for the wider West Midlands.
 
Stephen Karle believes in making things happen, whether it is expanding the West Bromwich Building Society into a dominant force in West Midlands financial services, or helping raise £500,000 for the new burns unit at Birmingham’s children’s hospital, the emphasis is on taking action.
 
Since he took over as chief executive of the 158 year old building society last October, Stephen has put into practice strongly-held ideas about the business and its role In the future of the region.
 
This means playing a big role in restoring the pride of local people in their area, and in raising its profile regionally and nationally.
 
That is one of the motivations behind the West Brom’s backing for the Red Balloon Appeal, which aims to raise £500,000 from local people and businesses to complete the £19 million child burns centre at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
 
“I believe this can be a world class centre, not just taking children from Birmingham and the Black Country but from across the UK and beyond, even providing care for children from conflict-torn areas like Iraq and the Lebanon.
 
“The West Midlands has suffered from an air of defeatism for too many years. There is much to be proud of here, and we at the West Brom want to contribute towards realising the potential of this region and it’s people.
 
“A world centre of excellence for the treatment of children with burns is an important part of that aim. There is also the point that supporting this appeal is, in simple humanitarian terms, the right thing to do, which is why our staff have already raised over £11,000 towards it. And as a building society, we are using our commercial and financial acumen on behalf of the Reg Balloon Appeal by launching an affinity account for savers where one per cent of the average annual balance will be donated to the appeal. This is similar to the successful accounts we already run with leading football clubs in the area such as Albion, Villa, Birmingham City and Walsall.
 
As well as the personal and charitable fields, Stephen Karle wants to see the West Brom making an impact on the social and economic life of the region. As a result, he served as the interim chairman of Regenco – Sandwell’s urban regeneration company- while it recruited a new chief executive, Karen Walker. He was subsequently voted in as permanent chairman, a role he clearly relishes.
 
“There have been a number of projects that have been sitting around for several years that we have now got moving” he said.
 
“We are not underestimating the challenge facing us. We have the second toughest targets of any urban regeneration company in the UK. The toughest are those faced by Liverpool, which has Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy on its board. Regenco has recruited an excellent board and chief executive, and we are already making impressive progress. In the last few weeks we have secured the building of a new further education college in West Bromwich. We have also been talking with Tesco about its plans for a major new store in West Brom which will dovetail with the regeneration of the town centre. In addition, we
 
have seen the local authority sign a contract with BT’s Liberata business to handle out-sourced back office work for the council at a 300,000 sq ft office complex in borough by Stoford, creating hundreds of new jobs. The approach at Regenco is the same as our approach at the West Brom: we want to make things happen”
 
Stephen laughs and recalls “I’ve recently been visiting all our 50 branches around the country with what we have dubbed ‘the Stephen Karle Makes it Happen Roadshow’ it had a serious point, though. We have had an initiative we called ‘900 minds’ although we have since grown to employ nearly 1000 people. The purpose of the initiative is to engage with every single employee and to involve them in developing our commercial strategy for the future.”