Minna Israel Banking on success

She was sitting in front of her favourite Barrington Watson painting. The painting showed a country scene with a young girl sitting on a wall on the side of the road.

“It is my favourite”, she says, “because it reminds me of myself — a little girl from the country.”

Minna Israel, the little girl from country, has blossomed into one of the most powerful women on the Jamaican banking scene today as the deputy general manager of Scotia Bank Jamaica — a bank that has over 42 branches island wide. She is also the first woman to have held the post in the bank’s 114- year history.

A past student of Clarendon College in Chapelton, Clarendon, she said that during her high school days she had thought of something in finance but she was not quite sure what.

“By the time I went to CAST (College of Arts Science and Technology, now University of Technology) I did Business Management. During the summer, I did internship at Royal Bank Jamaica Limited (which later became Mutual Security Bank in 1984). After that summer of internship, I decided to specialise in Banking,” she explained when All Woman interviewed her in her offices at the Bank’s headquarters in downtown Kingston.

“When I finished CAST, I started with Royal Bank in 1976, then moved on to become an accountant trainee manager,” the impeccably dressed Isreal said. It was not long before the ambitious young woman was assigned to work at the Bank’s head officer where she stayed for five years.

Subscribing to the belief that education is the key to social advancement, she went off to the University of the West Indies where she did her first degree in Management between 1984-1987. That whetted her appetite for further studies but she said the Jamaican landscape at the time offered very little that appealed to her.

“There was no MBA programmes then but there was an MSC — which I started and then I decided to go to the University of West Ontario (now Richard Ivy Busines School in Canada).I did my MBA in finance and general marketing in 1987,” she explained.

“My peers at the time thought it was not the right move because I sold my townhouse to finance my postgraduate studies. Some of them said, ‘why go through that hassle when you already have a first degree.’

“I thought there was so much more I could learn and I could broaden my experience outside the country. In hindsight it was the best move I made,” she said.

But it came with a high price. She had to relocate her three-year old son to Canada and leave him in the care of relatives.

“I had a lot of family support in Canada. I have three sisters and two brothers there. My son lived with one of my sisters because I was two hours away in London, Ontario. I saw him on weekends but it was a major sacrifice for the two years.

“My son was raised by my family. They filled the gap when I was not there. He is a balanced kid though and I am happy for that,” she told All Woman.

Israel described herself as very career focused. She was also very happy she said to be able to do what she loved best.

“This is what I really love and that is why I put so much into it. One of the values I am working on instilling in our staff is to be passionate about what you do,” she said.

Israel is also very optimistic about being able to meet the challenges that will come with her new job — a post which came into effect on May 1, 2003.

“I am confident that I will be able to do a good job. One of the things I want to see is a change in the speed in which we get things done — sometimes things get done slowly but that is not so much an issue at the bank but a societal issue,” she said.

“I am excited about the challenge and it will be one because our banking landscape has changed both internally and externally. There is increased competition, new regulations and increased demands from our customers and staff.”

According to Israel, who has been in banking for 21 years, it is her informal style with people that has contributed to her success.

“I am very informal and that helps to engender trust,” she said.

This opinion is somewhat supported by financial services manager, Michael Shaw.

“She is willing to get hands on. If you are having difficulty with a customer, she will step in. She is willing to go meet clients and you would believe that she knew the person ten years ago,” he told All Woman.

He has known her since 1996, when he was the Loans Officer at Liguanea Branch and she was district general manager. “Another thing is that she refers customers to you. She not only sets targets, but she helps you to make your target,” he said.

Israel has been at Scotia Bank since 1991 and has moved through the ranks relatively quickly.

“I was recruited by Scotia Bank to come back to Jamaica but I spent time at the head office there before I came back in August, 1991. I was promoted to a senior account manager within six months,” she said while reminiscing that it was one of the most rewarding experiences for her. There has been significant change in the banking scene where women were concerned, she said, According to her in the early days, there were few women in senior management in banking in Jamaica and those that were there were less recognised.”

But that has changed significantly over the last few years. People are looking for the best person to do the job – somebody who can get results not so much male or female,” she said. Another factor that has contributed to her success in banking, she said was the rapport that she had established with her clients.

“I learnt so much from my customers. I have developed good customer intimacy with them and they gave me frank criticisms and so on. They incorporated me (the bank) into their business plan and in turn we incorporated them and their needs into our planning. That partly accounted for my success in corporate banking,” she explained.

Israel has held the posts of:

– District general manager for Kingston and Morant Bay branches which were about 13 at the time (between 1998 and 2000)

– General manager for corporate and commercial banking (2000 – 2002).

One of the posts that she has held, which she liked the least, was that of deputy general manager for credit risk management.

“It took me a while to fall in love with it. I did not get the chance to interact with clients as much as I would normally do. I did it for two years and I put my all into it so that I could be promoted out of it,” she said with a laugh.

When she has time she loves to entertain friends, customers and staff.

According to Shaw, what drew Israel to him was her spirit.

“She breathes life into the room and that attracted me to her. Her personality is energetic. This is the first world that comes to mind. She is very pleasant and full of energy, very positive,” he said. “What I like most about her is her willingness to praise loudly and to correct softly. She lets everybody know about you if you do good. She is very genuine, very outspoken. You don’t have to guess what she is thinking,”

“Its hard to dislike anything about her but the thing I least like would be that you can’t tell her any secret about the job, because if it is something that needs to be corrected, she is going to do something about it.”

When All Woman asked where she wanted to be in ten years time, she laughing said, “hopefully retired and married.”

There will be time later for that significant other she said. But she also wants to spend some time being more involved in community work.