I built a fintech giant with no formal qualifications — now I own a football club
Jennifer Sieg meets Carol Shanahan, English businesswoman, philanthropist and owner of Port Vale Football Club
English businesswoman Carol Shanahan – founder of fintech firm Synectics Solutions and owner of Port Vale Football Club – is no stranger to hard work.
Shanahan, now 66, left school at 17 without any qualifications or work experience and later found herself behind what is now one of Stoke-on-Trent’s most successful firms.
Synectics Solutions, one of the earliest pioneers of financial fraud detection and prevention, was founded in 1992 and has now saved an estimated £7.2bn to date across the public and private sectors.
Looking back, the self-made entrepreneur says it all started right out of school when she became the first female main-frame operator at an all-male firm in Birmingham.
Determined to find a job she could succeed at, she put herself forward for a role that required everything she could not offer. The advertisement sought a man with academic qualifications, a driver’s licence and work experience.
“Nope, nope, nope, nope,” she recalls hearing from her friend who was helping her on the job hunt.
“I didn’t have any qualifications at all in school. I had six aborted attempts at education throughout my childhood,” she laughs.
Little did she know, her determination to secure the role and prove herself valuable would be a lesson she would hold closely throughout her business career many decades later.
From fintech to football
You’d be forgiven for questioning why Shanahan decided to buy a struggling football club in 2019 following a three-decade career in financial fraud detection.
Despite being born in Lincolnshire, Shanahan was raised by her mum in West Bromwich. As a little girl, she often found herself wandering down the Birmingham road (predating the M5) to watch the football and find a phone box to call her dad about it.
The memories came flooding back when she set up Synectics Solutions and 350 members of staff in an office next to the Port Vale Football Club.
When she found out the club faced looming administration, she jumped at the opportunity to save it and give back to a community she says felt like home.
With risk comes reward, Shanahan says. She can still remember the exasperated warnings from some of her most trusted advisers.
We cannot let you do this deal. This is a terrible deal. This is an absolutely awful deal.
“We cannot let you do this deal. This is a terrible deal. This is an absolutely awful deal,” Shanahan recalls them pleading.
“You respect the information and you respect their education within that area and their knowledge… [but] you do it and you do it because it feels right,” she adds.
“I don’t mind the risk… I just want to know it. You don’t want to be sat there not knowing what’s around the corner [because] a lot can come.”
To date, the investment has been one of her most challenging yet proudest achievements yet.
Owning your strengths
Shanahan is not one to regret any of her decisions – whether business or personal – and what seems to be a life of risk has always paid off in her favour.
As long as you stay true to yourself and learn from your mistakes, that is.
On the first day of her role as the first female main-frame operator she felt as if she needed to act like someone she is not.
I went in and I tried to begin with what a lot of women do when they go into a man’s world. I tried to out-man the men.
“I went in and I tried to begin with what a lot of women do when they go into a man’s world. I tried to out-man the men,” Shanahan laughs.
That approach, she says, didn’t last long.
“I started to knock that back and then I started to actually see the power of being a woman and of being who I am, rather than trying to fit in by being something that I’m not,” Shanahan adds.
“That was a big lesson – and one that came back when I bought Port Vale, because that’s very much a man’s world.”
Hard work pays off
Shanahan was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University in 2017 and also became chair of the Port Vale Foundation Trust.
She founded the Hubb Foundation in 2019, a charity dedicated to helping underprivileged children in Stoke-on-Trent, which recently served its one millionth free meal.
The ethos behind her charitable efforts, she says, is to give children the opportunity they might not have otherwise.
“How many kids are walking that path that I walked, and how many have the opportunity to fall the way I fell?… That’s what really started to drive me,” Shanahan says.
What’s next?
In April of this year, the Shanahan family sold Synectics Solutions in a deal reportedly worth £180m to private equity firm Synova Capital.
“We’ve changed Synectics from being the family company to being the family investment – and that’s been a big change,” Shanahan, who now sits on the board as a non-executive with her daughter, says.
“To make the decision to sell Synectics was big, but it was the right decision.”
The businesswoman has since focused much of her time on investing into the leadership team at Port Vale Football Club, which is led by manager Darren Moore and chief executive Matt Hancock.
“If you’re going to splash out, splash out on getting your leaders right,” she says.
CV
Name: Carol Shanahan
Company: Synectics Solutions
Founded: February 1992
Staff: 360
Title: Formerly Founder and Chair, now Non-Executive Director
Age: 66
Born: 27 December 1957
Lives: Cheshire
Studied: 5 abortive attempts at education but now has 1 O Level, 2 Honorary Doctorates and an OBE
Talents: Crisis management, change management and anything people-based
Motto: Know the difference between being right and winning
Most known for: Community work in Stoke leading to ownership of Port Vale FC
First ambition: To be an airhostess
Favourite book: Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Best piece of advice: Respect yourself and don’t take yourself too seriously