The latest episode of From Education to Finance (E2F) is a conversation with someone who has spent her career giving financial services a clearer voice - and fighting to ensure more people are heard within it. Noreen Biddle Shah, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at Carne Group and founder of Reboot, has built a professional life shaped by communication, curiosity, and a determination to challenge the structures that hold people back.

A Career That Began With Communication - Not Finance

Noreen did not begin her journey with an ambition to work in financial services. Her degree was rooted in communications, with early roles in PR and trade associations focused on policy and industry advocacy. Finance arrived unexpectedly, when the Investment Management Association approached her about a press officer role. She remembers feeling intimidated by the technical questions, until the CEO reframed the conversation in human terms - asking whether she saved money, hoped to buy a home, or thought about her financial future. It was a moment that made the sector feel less abstract and more connected to everyday life.

That spark drew her in, and the organisation invested heavily in her development, encouraging her to take CISI courses and internal training that gave her a grounding in investments and the wider industry. Those early experiences shaped the way she sees her role today: not as a marketer in the traditional sense, but as someone who helps people understand what financial services actually does.

The Work of Making Complexity Clear

As the senior marketing and communications lead at Carne Group, Noreen’s work is not about slogans or surface‑level messaging. It is about translation - taking complex operational, regulatory, and governance concepts and making them understandable to people who may not live in the technical detail. She describes her job simply: to explain what her company does, why it matters, how marketing drives equity value, and how it solves real problems for clients.

Her aim is to make Carne’s value proposition intelligible not only to specialists, but to senior leaders who may be removed from day‑to‑day processes, and even to someone outside the industry who simply wants to say, “I get it.” This work requires creativity, empathy, and the ability to think beyond the language used internally.

Reboot: Turning Conversation Into Change

Alongside her senior role at Carne, Noreen is the founder of Reboot, an organisation dedicated to improving ethnic minority progression in financial services. Reboot emerged during COVID, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, when conversations about race became more open and urgent. With professionals across the industry, she helped create a platform that combined storytelling with data - elevating lived experiences while grounding them in research and analysis.

One of the most striking findings from Reboot’s work is the drop‑off in ethnic minority representation at senior levels. Graduate‑level entry is proportionate to the UK population, but progression into leadership “depletes hugely.” This is not a pipeline problem; it is a structural one. Reboot’s research has shown that systems, processes, and cultures - many of them decades old - create barriers that prevent talented people from moving up.

The organisation has spent years working with regulators, government, and industry leaders to address these issues, including lobbying for mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting. After five years of advocacy, the government confirmed that reporting will become mandatory for organisations with 250 employees or more - a milestone Noreen describes as a moment of pride, achieved not through funding but through purpose, persistence, and collective effort.

For Noreen, diversity is not only a moral imperative; it is an economic one. She points to the dangers of groupthink, the blind spots that emerge when leadership teams lack diversity of thought, and the increasing scrutiny from investors who want assurance that governance is robust. Her argument is clear: inclusion strengthens decision‑making, reduces risk, and improves outcomes. It is not a “nice to have”; it is fundamental to how the sector should operate.

A Message to Students: Confidence, Curiosity, and Belonging

Noreen’s journey is a powerful message for students who may feel unsure about their place in financial services. She is clear that the sector needs many kinds of talent - analytical minds, creative thinkers, communicators, problem‑solvers, and people who bring fresh perspectives. You do not need an economics degree to belong here. You do not need to understand every technical detail on day one. What you need is curiosity, enthusiasm, and the confidence to ask questions.

She encourages students to build networks, seek mentors, and recognise that people in the industry want them to succeed. And she offers a piece of advice that feels both simple and profound: “You need to be your best cheerleader… you belong anywhere and everywhere.”

Final Reflections

Noreen’s story is a reminder that financial services is shaped not only by markets and regulation, but by the people who choose to show up with clarity, courage, and conviction. Her work - both at Carne and through Reboot - shows how communication can open doors, how data can drive change, and how a single voice can help shift an entire conversation. For students and early‑career professionals, her message is simple: you belong here, your perspective matters, and the sector is stronger when you bring your whole self to it.

To find out more about the E2F video podcast and get involved contact: oliharrison@financialmarketinginsights.com