Becoming a female entrepreneur in the city, with Mia Drennan

**Tony Clark** (0:03)
This is the London Fintech Podcast, bringing you practical insights and approaches, stories and inspiration from the innovators who are building the new world of financial services.
This podcast is brought to you by NextWave, strategy specialists and solutions for financial institutions. Welcome to London Fintech Podcast. Today's discussion is both a startup and a scale up conversation, and a story of growth against the odds, given that only around 12% of Fintech founders globally are women, and I'm privileged to be talking to a hugely successful female founder on today's show. Mia Drennan started her business, Global Loan Advisory Services or GLAS, with £6,000 in savings and grew it to over 100 million turnover in the last year, and the business is now managing over 400 billion of assets in administration. She didn't have institutional backing, proving not only that you don't always need external money at the start, you might need it later, but the success is possible even in an industry where women receive just 2% of venture capital funding. So we're going to talk a bit about innovating in the lending market, but more over this conversation is really more about the founder's journey and navigating growth successfully. Welcome Mia.

**Mia Drennan** (1:17)
Hi, nice to meet you.

**Tony Clark** (1:18)
Great to have you on the show. So where are you speaking from today? Where's HQ for you?

**Mia Drennan** (1:22)
I'm actually in my office, which is at Luddgate Hill. Our global HQ is based on the junction of Luddgate Circus.

**Tony Clark** (1:31)
Okay, so you're around the corner from me. Well, when I'm actually in my office, which for this recording is not the case, you're not very far away because we're on Bishop's Gate. But before we talk about the investment management sector, lending, the glass business, can you introduce briefly, tell us a bit about growing up in your career journey, leading up to and founding the business?

**Mia Drennan** (1:50)
Absolutely. I guess when I was 13, I was at school, I went to comprehensive school. I had my first part-time job and that age, paper rounds evolved into a whole sector of different jobs to support my pocket money requirements. As I was growing up as a teenager, but also instilled in me, I think, that work ethic. So when I got to start to leave in school, I had two specific goals. I was in the air cadets and I wanted to go in the RAF. And so, yeah, that was my first idea. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fly planes, so I decided I'd go to the other passion, which was art and design. And I went to art college for about two years. And then ultimately, when I came out of that, I realized that I needed to earn money, couldn't earn money in that particular sector. So I got on a train, went to Liverpool Street, took my CV around to the recruitment ages and started temping in the city, which I did for a few years.
And that's really, I guess, what inspired my passion to work in the city of London. And I ended up my first proper job, as I call it, at KPMG, which, funny enough, is around the corner from where I am here today, which really took me on my journey into professional and financial services from then on in. And then eventually led me to start, well, not only one company, but two companies of which I'm now CEO and founder of GLAS today.

**Tony Clark** (3:18)
Yeah, and we'll come to that in a minute. And I love that sort of self-propelled, starting with the paper ad. I actually started with one of those as well, but I hated it because I didn't like the dogs and every time you walked out the garden path, and then picking up your CV and getting on the train and coming to London and hustling your way into your first job. I mean, that's, you know, I think a great illustration perhaps of where a lot of founders start. And just to get to know you a little bit, and we're going to jump into talking about the business in a moment. When you're off duty, when you're decompressing and trying to relax and rewind, what do you like to do?

**Mia Drennan** (3:49)
So I've got, you know, very lucky that I've got a lovely house in the countryside. I've got three dogs, do a lot of dog walking and relaxing in the house. But I also like to travel and go on holidays. So I can often be found on a nice beach somewhere with something cold in my hand and relaxing when I'm not traveling for business. So yeah, a lot of travel and looking after my dogs. And I've got a 23 year old daughter who also loves spending time with her when she's at uni.