Kathy Cummings

Anyone who knows Ms Cummings – a finalist in the 2013 Australian Lending Awards’ Best Industry Thought Leader category – knows she works incredibly hard and leads a very busy professional and personal life.

On a typical day, Ms Cummings will start her morning by checking her email over breakfast on her iPad.

“I also like to watch Karl and Lisa on the Today show and download the AFR for a quick scan of the financial news,” she says.

Following that, Ms Cummings drives into central Sydney along the M2, all the while listening to Alan Jones to catch up on all the “hot issues”.

When she arrives at CBA’s offices, Ms Cummings tends to grab a long black before going into a “huddle” with her leadership team to review their “visual management board”, which includes the previous day’s sales results.

“From this, we determine if any corrective action or problem solving is required,” she says. “This business runs on numbers and I love to stay on top of them.”

After that, Ms Cummings usually spends a few hours calling some of the bank’s “top performers” to get their take on the market and to keep them in touch with any new initiatives.

“I love congratulating our high performers, whether they are brokers or staff, and I really enjoy coaching the team,” she says.

Not surprisingly then, Ms Cummings says that the best part of her job is “seeing people succeed”.

“Most days I will have meetings with key internal stakeholders such as credit, home loans and mortgage processing,” she says.

“These meetings are very valuable in deepening our understanding of each other’s priorities and they contribute to smoothing out any differences, which leads to a better experience for both brokers and borrowers.”

Ms Cummings’ day is also filled with one-to-one meetings with her direct reports as well as with her personal assistant, who provides her with an overview of her emails and diary commitments.

So how does she manage it all? Moreover, how does she manage to strike a good work-life balance?

According to Ms Cummings, juggling tasks and priorities is only achieved through planning.

“You must plan ‘quality’ time with the family, otherwise it does not happen,” she says.

“Holidays are very important. They provide time to ‘chill out’ and I like to reward myself with a little pampering.”

Ms Cummings will no doubt be looking to plan to spend additional time with her family in the New Year as her daughter is just about to give birth.

But of course, spending time with family is only one part of Ms Cummings’ plans for the year ahead.

She also aims to ensure CBA continues to grow its third party business.

“We are well funded and we have a strong service platform and product offering that enables our customers’ lives,” she says.

“For our brokers, our partnership is guaranteed by a record of consistency and the continued evolution of our business model. The third party leadership team is passionate about our brokers and their businesses. We intend to lead the broker market.”

But while Ms Cummings is keen to continue to grow the third party channel in the New Year, achieving that is not without its challenges – including those challenges that form part of the bigger CBA picture.

“For me, the hardest part of my job is managing internal stakeholders and competing for scarce capital,” she says.

“My business is one of many within the group and I must compete with other group businesses for resources and for group executive time.”

Kathy Cummings is executive general manager, third party and mobile banking at Commonwealth Bank of Australia