For Natalie Blyth, the bees she tends at home gives her a model to follow in her role as one of the top-ranking female bankers in HSBC, Reuters reported.
Where the 47-year old investment banker gets her example from is ironic, considering that she is fatally allergic to bee stings. In fact, a stinging incident nearly killed her in 2012. However, she did not let that stop her. Rather she used that to inspire her, the report said.
When she's not advising companies about acquisitions or busy in her work at HSBC's strategy and management committees, she takes care of her beehives in her Oxfordshire home. The report quoted Blyth as saying, "Beekeeping has become part of my soul; for me it's about risk. Risk, efficiency and productivity."
It was this outlook towards risk and reward that allowed her to turn around the consumer M&A group of HSBC that was not performing as expected. In 2007, she turned the group into a unit that advised deals worth $30 billion last year. This included the $5.4 billion transaction that enabled Unilever to increase its holdings in its unit in India as well as the $1.6 billion acquisition of Yashili International Holdings by China Mengniu Dairy Co, the report said.
She first worked at Kleinwort Benson for 11 years and it was during her stint there that she gave birth to her four kids. Because she felt the need to prove herself to her male peers, she only took two weeks maternity leave after her first child. She wished she had not done so and now, she serves a mentor to younger women in the HSBC staff.
Blyth said, "I do feel it is my responsibility and duty to spot talented women, and get a great satisfaction reaching down, pulling them up fast, trying to help them avoid all the mistakes I've made."
While more than half of HSBC's 262,000 employees are women, only 23% hold senior roles, the report said.
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