Karen Barnett

Chief People Officer, British Business Bank


Karen Barnett, CPO, British Business Bank, explains why her employer is not a 'bank' despite the title, and why she is as happy grafting as sitting at the board table...

Karen Barnett

Chief People Officer, British Business Bank


Karen Barnett, CPO, British Business Bank, explains why her employer is not a 'bank' despite the title, and why she is as happy grafting as sitting at the board table...

Karen Barnett, Chief People Officer, British Business Bank, is building an HR function with purpose for a business that grew up during Covid. Here she talks to HR Grapevine about her career and how a love of sport has fed into her ethos of positivity and empowerment over choice and why she is as comfortable being a grafter of the day-to-day as she is of the strategic work.

‘I didn’t enjoy school much,’ says Karen Barnett who is immediately warm and open in laying bare the challenges she has faced as well as extolling her successes, of which there are many. “I did love sport, however and excelled at that,” she adds that as an only child her parents were incredibly supportive and while she worked hard to obtain her GCSEs, she knew academia wasn’t for her, choosing to pursue a BTEC in Business and Sports studies for sixth form. This early dipping of her toes into the realities of business life ignited her interest in how money is made. “It’s the best move I could ever have made,” she says.

Barnett’s BTEC ran alongside her growing sporting talent, and she began to juggle her studies with county level athletics and volleyball. I laugh when she tells me she is just of average height not a six footer that can ‘tip’ the ball into the net. “I’m a digger,” she says explaining her role on the pitch - a nod perhaps to how she finds the gap and fills them. Success on the sports field mirrored hard-won accomplishments at college and Barnett smiles when she says sixth form was a ‘turning point’ in her life, but the passage of time meant she was by now 18 and she turned her thoughts to what lay ahead.

‘The civil service suggested I take a job in personnel’

“I needed to get a job, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I applied for a mass intake in the civil service, entering as an administration assistant and via that interview process, they decided I would be very good working in the personnel department - that’s how my HR career began,” she explains.

It was by now 1991, ‘girl power’ was just around the corner for the yet-to-be formed Spice Girls. Meanwhile Barnett was making her own female stamp on the working world, starting out in the Department of Education, working in HR where the groundwork was forged by ‘doing HR right’. “You can’t pay people off in the civil service, it’s all about processes.” Four years of learning the ropes was a great first move but it was time to move on and ‘earn some money.’

She joined CSC Index, a business consultancy which she dubs as being, ‘like a small version of McKinsey.’ The role involved performing HR for the consultants. Looking back on this move and what was to follow she says, “I’ve meandered my way through my career. There has been no straight path at all, but it has worked out pretty well for me.” While it may not have been an unbending line the chronological order of posts, ensured she had the embedded skills from the civil service and the breadth of fast exposure working within an SME to deploy them. That line was well ordered and strategic. With a growing business, it inevitably was snapped up and sold and Barnett made herself redundant.

“I saw a job advertised in the Evening Standard to be the first HR person for a fund management company, the Old Mutual Asset Managers in London, Merian Global Investors.” It was now 1999, Posh and Becks were tying the knot and Barnett was face to face with one of the hardest interviews of her life. “They were two scary South African CEOs, but I have always made a vow to always only ever ‘do me’ so I was open and honest, and was my authentic self,” she says.

The gamble paid off and she was duly hired into their HR department. While taking on a senior job she also finished her CIPD qualification part-time whilst working. “There I was as a mature student, but it was the best decision ever as it allowed me to bring what I learnt and transfer it straight back into the workplace, that really accelerated my learning.” The job she believed she couldn’t land duly lasted for the next 21 years.

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