LONDON: Mitie boss Ruby McGregor-Smith has defended her decision to quit the outsourcer saying the timing to step down as CEO is unrelated to a recent profits warning, which sent its shares plunging almost 30% and wiped £240m from Mitie's value. She also set the record straight on the personal reason given to quit Mitie.
It's not the reason some newspapers gave last week: that she wanted to spend time with her children. The Tory peer insists that she was misquoted. “What I said was, when I was talking to the children last summer, certainly they were looking forward to having a bit more time with me. But that wasn't the reason. The driving factor was the time (spent at Mitie)”. On balancing career and family life, she says working parents should put family first, the rest will fall in place – the career will come back. “Focus on the family. Get that right and the rest comes. If you do it the other way round where you’re only thinking about your career, if the family stuff goes wrong, it will impact your career anyway. Put yourself and your health and the health of your family first. The career will come back,” she was quoted as saying to the Daily Telegraph.
When she started off in the 1990s, she often faced discrimination but she refuses to dwell on it, saying: “I don’t expect any sympathy, and nor should anyone else. My big message is ignore it. Don’t look at it; don’t talk about it and just focus on what you’re good at. If you do that, people recognise that. It’s not about shouting things out; it’s about working with the people who are right for your career.” At 43, she became the first Asian woman to take the helm of an FTSE 250 company with an enviable £2.5 million salary. She has spent the last 10 years as chief executive of Mitie, where the outsourcing firm’s turnover rose by over £1 billion on her watch.
Ruby’s daughter, 20, is at university, while her son, 17, is in the middle of his A-level studies as a weekly boarder. The desire to “hang out” with them more did play a part in her decision. “You cannot do these roles for ever. It’s a tough job. I always felt a decade would be enough. Life isn’t all about your job. I’m an individual, a mum of two, I’ve got other things I’d like to do that don’t involve work. Getting that balance right over the years has been quite interesting.” Born Ruby Ahmad in Lucknow, India, her parents moved to Stanmore, north London, when she was just two. She graduated from Kingston University with a degree in economics, she went on to train as an accountant – where she met her husband, Graham - and started at Serco in 1991. She has been the CEO of Mitie since 2007.
She doesn’t reveal her children’s names, for the sake of their privacy. “Once they’re at university, and then working, you see less of them. It’s a good time to spend time with (my son) while he’s still here. It’s a great age for them and for me to do things with them.”
