Peter Burrows initially joined Engage Mutual because he wanted a more senior role and saw a greater opportunity to achieve that by working for a smaller organisation. Prior to taking the reins there, he was a chartered accountant for 20 years before switching to financial services at Ernst & Young and then Aviva.
But while his ambitions to reach the top may have been one of the main drivers behind his appointment at the mutual as finance director in November 2010 and then chief executive in August 2013, he has come to love and appreciate the ethos of his current employer.
Now describing himself as a proud ambassador of the mutual model, he said the more he has learned about this approach to business, the more he began to feel at home.
He added: “The more I learned about the mutual model, the more I liked it. While we are a commercial business, our number one priority is not to maximise profits. As a mutual, the customer experience is at the heart of what we do. We want to give the customer a voice and to look the customer in the eye and say ‘we have done that haven’t we?’.”
It is that type of mentality that Mr Burrows felt separated the likes of Engage Mutual from the toxic reputation of banks. Though he accepted that his firm was by no means “immune” from negative press on financial services, he said efforts were consistently being made to engage with members and demonstrate the true meaning of mutuality.
Since landing the chief executive role in 2013, one of his first initiatives was to introduce a type of dividend for members. This was officially unveiled in January 2014 as Engage Foundation, a £1m fund for members “to spend on what matters to them”.
On this particular scheme, he said: “One of the questions we asked was how to share the financial success of the organisation with members.
“Elsewhere shareholders of Plcs get dividends, so we gave some thought about how to reward our members.”
Mr Burrows has also been keeping a close eye on the events unfolding at the Co-operative Group , which he claimed was a “great shame” and perfect example of taking things too far.
In spite of the “good principles” in place there, he explained that the flawed governance process showed how important it is to have board members with expertise in financial services.
He said: “As an insurance company, how can relatively complicated things be managed by board members who are not experts in financial services? We want our members to feel they have a genuine say and that can also happen in our Foundation, with the board managed by financial experts.
“Treating customers as customers and owners is a big theme for us. It is about giving your members a genuine voice in how the organisation is run, but recognising that financial service organisations are complicated and need financial service professionals to run the organisation.”
The financial recession also represented a pressing challenge for mutuals. Whereas macroeconomic data has suggested that the crisis in the UK is all but over, Mr Burrows said this positive data has yet to filter through to Engage Mutual customers.
Aside from the financial struggles of the mutual’s 500,000 customers, the recession has also seen a number of the markets that these types of organisations specialise in move into sharp decline. According to Mr Burrows, the government’s move to stop funding child trust funds has hit particularly hard, as these were previously among the biggest products offered by mutuals in the UK.
Equally challenging, he said, has been the numerous regulatory changes introduced in recent years. As a relatively small organisation, he explained that such changes have had a bigger cost impact on Engage Mutual than the bigger players, and have also presented tough challenges in terms of how best to serve customers.
He added: “Given our size, cost pressures are particularly sharp for us at the moment. Being a smaller organisation, regulatory charges hit us harder. We try to keep products as simple as possible for IFAs and customers. The industry in general tends to get technical and yet you have customers who just want help.
“Because we are desperate not to misguide customers, we wrap a lot of regulatory jargon in and around what we do, when what people actually want is simple help and guidance. It is tough to stay within the regulatory guidelines and remain simple. Some financial literature is hard to understand even for me, but if you remove it most of the time the compliance teams then worry about how things are worded.”
To counter these difficulties, Mr Burrows said his team are continuously looking to develop new products that are affordable and suited to its customer base. While child care trusts may no longer be as prominent, he claimed that success had been found in over-50s life cover, which helped ease the fears of a lot of people over funeral costs.
He said: “Our over-50s life cover is popular because at that age people’s mind turns to what will happen when they are gone. It does not have to be a big amount either. For example, a number of customers use it for funeral planning. Premiums can be as low as £10 a month for people looking to raise £4,000 or £5,000 to pay for the funeral they want.”
Career Ladder
2013 - present: Engage Mutual, chief executive
2010 - 2012: Engage Mutual, finance director
2008 - 2010: Aviva Europe, financial reporting director
2003 - 2008: Aviva UK: various divisional head of finance roles, ultimately director of business planning
1998 - 2002: Ernst & Young, consulting
1990 - 97 Ernst & Young, audit
1993: Qualified as chartered accountant
1990: BA: Mathematics, University of Oxford
Other roles:
2013 - present: Director of Association of Financial Mutuals
2006 - present: Governor, York College
