Jackie Arnold doesn’t really know the meaning of the phrase “glass ceiling”.
The proud Barrovian has forged a high-flying career in industries that have, by and large, been male-dominated preserves. Notably at the submarine builder BAE Systems where she spent 19 years, most of them as head of strategy.
That success is all the more remarkable when you consider that she didn’t go to university and never strayed too far from her home town.
Her latest role is as chair of the Cumberland Building Society, the first woman to occupy the hot seat in its 174-year history.
She said: “I’m incredibly delighted to have this opportunity and the fact that I’m the first woman to be elected as Chair is an added bonus. Around 50 per cent of roles executive and board level are now filled by women, up from only 19% five years ago. I’m in no doubt that’s a significant indication that I won’t be the last. The talent pool at the Cumberland is significant and diverse which bodes well for the future of the organisation”
She has already served six years as a non-executive director of the Cumberland, Cumbria’s largest financial institution.
Based in Carlisle, it has assets of £3.2bn, mortgage lending of £2.59bn, and over 30 branches across Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland and southern Scotland.
Jackie said: “The Cumberland is a really neat fit for me. It was an opportunity to engage with another anchor institution within Cumbria having spent time at BAE, the University and the LEP.”
She is a passionate advocate of the mutual model where the Society is owned by, and run for the benefit of, its members the savers and borrowers.
The Cumberland’s central purpose is to ‘create a banking experience that’s kinder to people and the planet’.
“Over the last five years there has been a shift towards businesses having a greater emphasis on the social-purpose agenda,” Jackie said.
“Mutuality captures so much of that. There are no shareholders to pay and social purpose is inherent in the business and the way that it’s run.
“There is still an extensive branch network, for example, and when you call the Cumberland you speak directly to a real person.
“We have sustained the Feefo Platinum Service Award [for outstanding customer service] for the fourth year running with a score of 4.9 out of 5.
“And we look after our Cumberland colleagues. That’s borne out in the Best Companies’ survey of employers where we have a ‘world class’ three-star status.
“Equally importantly, I love the work that we undertake in the community. Making a difference to the communities in which we operate is something that I fundamentally support. We do that incredibly well.
“We live by these values and measure ourselves by them. The Cumberland is a shining example of how a business should be operated.”
To understand what makes Jackie Arnold tick, you have to go back to her roots.
The older of two siblings, she had a conventional Barrow upbringing. Her dad worked in the shipyard while mum was a home maker.
Academically able, she passed the old 11+ exam to win a place at Barrow Girls’ Grammar School. Had she been growing up now, she would almost certainly have gone on to university. Back in the 1970s far fewer entered higher education and, like most of her peers, she went straight into the world of work. For Jackie, it was through a trainee programme with a local accountancy firm.
“The whole concept of business was a really exciting one for me”, she explained.
After qualifying as a chartered accountant, followed by a short stint in local government, she joined Lakeland Power Limited, which operated a gas-fired power station just outside Barrow. Initially company accountant and company secretary, she became the managing director overseeing a portfolio of contracts for the £60m turnover business.
Then in 2003 she moved to BAE Systems.
A plum job at BAE is the height of aspiration for any true Barrovian. The shipyard dominates the town, physically and economically.
She started as chief accountant then developed a remit around central reporting and forecasting and that evolved into the head of strategy role.
Jackie said: “BAE Systems has a long-term planning process with a 10-year business plan and a 30-year vision for resource profiling and order book.”
This was a difficult time for the shipyard, which faced a dip in workload following the completion of the Vanguard programme – the submarines that carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent – in the late 1990s.
“The workforce dropped under 5,000 at one stage,” Jackie said, “but we knew it would need go back up to 10,000 for the Dreadnought programme [the replacement for Vanguard, now under development].
“That’s a significant change. My job was to work with the community to ensure the skills and living conditions were there to meet our recruitment ambitions.”
This involved taking on outside roles, a task she embraced with gusto
She served as a governor of Furness College and trustee of Furness Education Trust, a multi-academy trust where she recently returned as chair. She also chaired the business advisory board at Barrow Sixth Form College.
She chaired the Furness Economic Development Forum, became a director and vice-chair of Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership – chairing the investment panel – and a member of the Northwest Business Leadership Team.
She also engaged with academia as pro vice-chancellor of the University of Cumbria where she established the Institute for Business, Industry and Leadership and played a pivotal role in bringing a campus in Barrow.
She continues this involvement with part-time positions as professor of practice at the University of Cumbria and leader in residence at Lancaster University working with postgraduates and MBA students, which she finds “incredibly rewarding”.
Her efforts were recognised with the MBE in 2016 for services to the Cumbrian economy, then an honorary degree from the University of Cumbria in 2022 in recognition of her “lifelong and outstanding contribution to strategic development and business growth in Cumbria”.
Despite all her commitments, Jackie has a life outside work. A keen runner and cyclist, she completed her first triathlon last year. She enjoys spending time with her three children and now has one grandchild with another on the way.
Jackie still works with BAE researching the impact its social purpose activity has had locally.
That said, the Cumberland opportunity came along at just the right time for someone who never takes her foot off the pedal.
She has a clear vision of what the role of chair involves.
“It is to ensure that the business is secure and the strategy is sound,” she said. “That we have the right skills around the boardroom table.
“My predecessor, John Hooper, has spent a huge amount of time getting diversity into the boardroom. By that I mean diversity of thought and experience and background. It’s critical to continue with that.”
She takes the chair as the Society pushes ahead with its technology transformation programme in which it invested £11.4m in the last financial year with more to come.
Jackie said: “We need to engage technology to meet the needs of customers.
“It’s the biggest challenge facing the Society, certainly in recent times, perhaps ever, but the potential it will unleash will be significant.
“It’s a case of one step at a time. My time as chair is to ensure the Society has a secure future and will be here and thriving for another 175 years.”