‘I left school at 16 and headed straight to Zurich’

Collinson tells me that he began with data processing – when he started out it wasn’t formally called an ‘apprenticeship’ but now it would be. “I was setting up home and motor car policies for customers and brokers and did that before moving into finance to lead our credit control function,” he explains.

Working amongst the weeds, as is the rite of passage for anyone beginning their career was not something that he suffered – quite the opposite, he loved getting to understand how the organisation worked from the shopfloor. “Talking to customers and distributors gave me such an awesome grounding in what the firm does, the part that insurance plays in people’s lives and the products that we offer.”

He was hungry to understand more, “If you really want to know what a business is like then I always say, ‘go and work in the contact centre’ because that’s where a company’s culture really lives and breathes.”

Collinson navigated his way through various stepping stones on the HR career ladder with a common thread uniting all his moves, “When I sit back and reflect there has always been a deep interest in what makes people tick, especially during times of change,” he says.

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I ask him why he’s never had the ‘itch’, and he tells me, “I feel like I’ve had lots of different careers, every time I have got bored or wanted to do something different, there’s been an opportunity to go and do that,” he explains. Like Mary Poppins he has had the adventures he has needed yet within the same walls. He admits that early on in his career a psychometric test outed him as someone that could potentially be ‘dangerous’ if he ever got bored, but he has proved that wrong by making the turns when he needed a new chapter.

‘I was brought up in a working class household’

I’m curious as to his drive – many professionals, even the ones that stick with the same employer are happy to wallow in middle management. Collinson tells me that he and his brother were ‘bonus babies’ born to a mother in her 40s which was much more unusual in those days. “I left school in the 1980s aged just 16 and my parents were working class – mum worked in a shop and dad in a factory.” Sadly, his father fell on the sword of recession and upon leaving school Collinson knew he had to start earning money to help the household.

That strive to earn a crust has never left him and today he is justified in pinching himself that he has risen the ranks to Chief HR Officer, Zurich UK. I ask him what he does day to day in the top dog role.

“I genuinely lead a team of brilliant HR professionals. If I boil things down to what the job is about its keeping the HR voice at the table,” he says. What this means is for HR to support the development of business-owned people plans.