Mabel McLean

Sweet Music, Science and Mortgages – Behind the Veil of an Analytical Mortgage Mind.

Achievements of greatness, by Mabel… in no particular order:

• A decade of marriage to Cameron
  [Survived]
• First Violin for Glasgow School Strings
  [Played, Strung and Plucked]
• Double bass for Edinburgh Youth Orchestra
  [Plucked and Bowed]
• Obtaining her Honours degree in Genetics from the University of Glasgow
  [Read and Obtained]
• Not gambling at all during her 3-night stay in Las Vegas
  [This might be a world record, will have to check with Guinness]
• Appearing on Come Dine With Me
  [John Travolta wasn’t available]
• Becoming a trustee for Stonehaven Gymnastics Club
  [The Olympics got postponed and they needed the best people on the job]

With a degree in Genetics, originally a career in science beckoned but, after researching the sexual habits of the glamorous Fruit Fly, she found a different career path.   Male fruit flies “serenade” the females, who are notoriously picky as they reject the vast majority of advances.  There’s also some dancing involved.

Mabel loves numbers, data, and research and how data can come together to form information, so a career in Financial Services seemed the correct path to venture down.  This is handy, given what McLean Financial Services is about.  

Her first foray into the financial services world was working for Halifax in their mortgage intermediary contact centre in Glasgow.  It was also here that she met Cameron, the whisky-loving mortgage broker. From Halifax, Mabel went to work for an independent mortgage broker before going to Abbey for Intermediaries and a move into Santander Business Banking where she learned a great amount about people management.

The mortgage administrator roles at Halifax and Abbey for Intermediaries gave Mabel insight into how lenders work.  A decade later the technology may have changed but the fundamentals remain the same.  The industry is heavily regulated, requiring mortgage and protection advisors to hold a professional qualification.  Mabel’s role at McLean Financial Services is to support all the team of mortgage advisors and admin to provide the best client experience.

“From the beginning, I wanted to acknowledge that the mortgage advisor role is not a typical Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job.   Flexible working shouldn’t be granted once or twice a year, it shouldn’t undermine an individual’s right to have a life outside of work either.  Life is unpredictable and our flexible working policy enables all of our team to enjoy their roles and maintain a healthy work-life balance”  

There’s a lot of empathy for working parents and it underpins the flexible working policy which Mabel is very proud to have implemented for the team.

Just this July has managed to test her organisational skills with juggling childcare (or the lack thereof), managing multiple schedules/calendars, and keeping on top of work emails – just to name a few!

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