STEERING TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY

Mary Beighton , director of people and culture at Zuto, shares the car finance platform’s commitment to balancing people, planet and profit

Z Introduce Zuto and your offering and mission

Zuto is a fintech company on a mission to revolutionise the car finance industry and bring more transparency to customers. We work with a large marketplace of lenders and have helped over 325,000 customers in the UK find the right car and finance that suits them. Our sophisticated platform connects with lenders directly and utilises extensive data and customer research to return a guaranteed rate and pre-approval within seconds.

As a business we are growing fast but while profit and market share are really important, they’re only half the story. The car finance industry has historically suffered from an image problem, sometimes seen as being plagued by bad practice and unfair lending rates. At Zuto, we want to shift this, and bring fairness and transparency back to this market. While transforming the way people buy cars is exciting, a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillars signifies a purpose that goes beyond just cars and finance. What about the impact our businesses are having on our employees, our customers, our local communities, and the planet? Gaining B Corp certification in 2022 has been an extremely powerful tool for our business, helping us to acknowledge a higher purpose – from becoming an employer of choice, championing diversity, and being mindful of our planet.

Z Share some of your recent successes

Our latest Company Accounts have recently been published for the year ended 30 June 2022, which shows record performance – overall turnover of £41.5million reflected year-on-year growth of +49 per cent. What we’re most proud of is how we’ve balanced people, planet and profit. Our financial success is underpinned by a focus on people and a wider purpose, exemplified by becoming a B Corp and verifying that the business meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

At Zuto, we are passionate about doing the right thing, for both our customers and the ecosystem in which we operate. We prioritise the wellbeing of our employees, who we call Zutonites, the development of the customer experience and nurturing close and long-standing relationships with partners and lenders. It’s also worth noting that Zuto has achieved Best Companies accreditation three times so far and won Best Workplace in the 2022 Prolific North Tech Awards.

Z

What makes Zuto a great place to work?

At Zuto, we see success as building something that we are all proud of, with a progressive culture that is inclusive, fuels creativity, and where all employees share in the upside. We strongly believe successful employee engagement is underpinned by impactful and relatable group values which include: customerfirst, there’s always a better way, get it done and enjoy the journey.

We strive to make sure our values flow through everything we do, from the small day to day decisions to wider strategic considerations. The way we communicate our values reflects this – be that through regular employee communications across a variety of media, or through more formal office-wide events.

Recognising the additional challenge people are facing with the high cost-of-living, the business has committed to paying the UK Living Wage as a minimum, and has introduced other ways to support Zutonites financially including:

■ Financial rewards: aligning pay and reward strategy - cost of living and benchmarking projects

■ Financial wellbeing: making sure Zutonites have not only a fair salary, but also a robust support package, for example free access to expert financial advice

■ Equality: significant family friendly policy changes, prayer/mindful room, gender neutral facilities available

Z What measures has Zuto implemented to foster a culture of equality and sustainability?

Prioritising the wellbeing of our people is the core theme of our People strategy at Zuto. One of our strategic business objectives is centred around nurturing an inclusive, progressive culture that we can all be proud of, and this principle is embedded across our approach.

This has really helped us through B Corp certification which demands significant resources and commitment and couldn’t have happened without the involvement and support of all the Zutonites. It’s crucial to make sure everyone is on board with a process like this so that it is meaningful and, when achieved, everyone is proud of it.

The process of gaining certification has been instrumental to shaping our thinking, putting every aspect of our work around wellbeing through stringent assessments to ensure we reach the highest standards of social responsibility. To complement this, we have a number of established Impact groups, made up of passionate Zutonites wanting to make a difference, and work to inform the ongoing enhancements to our wellbeing, benefits and reward programmes.

Aligning the B Corp lens on our work, whilst amplifying our collective ‘Voice of Zuto’ ensures that every level of our decision-making is focused on fostering a culture that includes and celebrates all of our people, regardless of their background or identity.

Z What's next for Zuto and future plans?

As a purpose-led group we continue to strive for more. We believe that putting our communities, our planet, diversity and inclusion, and wellbeing at the forefront of our purpose is essential as we continue to redefine what success looks like for businesses.

We’re pleased with overall engagement with our Impact groups so far and this is a continued area of focus for us. We aim to grow these groups further and are encouraged by the input from people outside of the groups willing to share their lived experiences to raise awareness on topics they feel passionately about.

Overall, we believe our efforts to open the conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion at Zuto have had an overwhelming positive effect on our entire employee value proposition, aiding talent acquisition, engagement and retention.

Last financial year marked the opening of our ‘Make a Difference’ fund, and we have scaled up our donations to the fund in 2023 as we continue to support a number of grass-roots causes throughout Greater Manchester.