"With me, Ana Botín took a chance on me, and that's a great lesson for all of us." - Pamela Ann Walkden, independent director of Banco Santander

On the 5th and 6th of May 2022, the women's community of the Santander W50 program - created by Banco Santander over 12 years ago with the aim of promoting female talent to achieve effective equality – had the chance to meet in person at a Summit held in London. 

At the meeting, around 200 participants and members of this extensive network of female leaders enjoyed two days of training sessions, discussions, top leadership exercises and networking. They also shared their ideas, fears, ambitions and professional experience.

To launch the new edition of Santander Course | SW50 Leadership Programme - LSE, today we're sharing one of the most inspirational moments from the Summit, which was none other than the talk by Pamela Ann Walkden - president of the Banco Santander Audit Committee and member of the Risk Supervision, Regulation and Compliance Committee - as well as independent director at Santander UK Plc. and Santander UK Group Holdings Plc. - in which attendees heard about her successful career first hand. 

After watching the interview with Pamela Ann Walkden it's easy to understand why, after successfully negotiating her way through a gauntlet of interviews at Grupo Santander, the last of these with Ana Botín, the president offered her a post at the company in three simple words: "Come to Madrid".

And so it was that in 2019, Pamela Ann Walkden joined the Banco Santander Board of Directors as an independent director. This strategic role is the kind of challenge she set out to take on when she decided to retire from executive duties at her old company Standard Chartered Bank, where she was Group Head of Human Resources, Risk, Treasurer, Internal Audit, Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations, Asset and Liability Management, and Regional Markets. Moreover, she served as an independent member of the Regulation Committee of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK, and a member of the Stakeholder Group at the European Banking Authority (EBA) among other roles.

However, this change of course didn't come about overnight: her new objective required her to prepare herself in order to successfully complete the transition. And as she herself says: "To become a member of a Board, personal attributes count more than experience". 

In this interview, Pamela explains the ups and downs of her career change, her view of talent as a leader, the changing profiles sought by Boards of Directors, and how women should be able to shake off their own reticence and break the glass ceiling, thus opening up major job opportunities for themselves, just as she did. She also encourages other women to become leaders who move into all sorts of business fields and are able to challenge their view of business or act as a front-line decision-makers.

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