FOR a former McKinsey high-flyer with a degree in mathematics from Oxford, an MBA from Stanford and a renown as the first woman finance director of an FTSE 100 bank, it must be tedious for Helen Weir to be asked about her work-life balance and how she finds time to shop for clothes.

But the 44-year-old Lloyds TSB executive knew when she accepted the Harper’s Bazaar & Chanel Businesswoman of the Year award on Wednesday that she would have to expose herself to a level of scrutiny that male executives rarely have to undergo.

“I said ‘yes’ when I was approached about the award because it’s important to encourage women to think that you can make it into a senior role in an organisation,” she says. The rest of the time, however, she does not think about her gender. “It’s never crossed my mind and no one’s treated me differently because of it. I don’t think they’d get away with it,” she says, only half-joking.

Ms Weir is immediately likeable — a bit girly but with a don’t-mess edge. No wonder. She had a crash course in cutting it among men when she decided to leave McKinsey in 1995 after five years consulting mainly for retailers to work for B&Q as finance director of its new warehouse division. Within two years she had become finance director of the company and, three years after that, she was asked by Sir Geoff Mulcahy, the chief executive of Kingfisher, B&Q’s parent, at the time, to handle the group’s finances.

She quickly adapted to DIY. One analyst says: “It’s a hairy-arsed-builder sort of industry, so there was no room for shrinking violets. She had a warrior quality about her and was always up for the craic.”

Ms Weir survived Sir Geoff’s replacement with Gerry Murphy in 2002 and saw through a restructuring of the group. She also experienced the downside of a high profile. At Kingfisher she was the best-paid woman in the FTSE 100, in part because of a £344,000 relocation allowance that infuriated shareholders.

By 2004 she was ready to be the boss. “The FD role [at Kingfisher] had lost its richness because all the interesting stuff was going on at the operating companies,” she says. She began looking for a chief executive position at a smaller company. Joining one of Britain’s biggest banks was the last thing on her mind, but a friend recommended her to Eric Daniels, who was looking for a finance director.

Still smarting from the criticism over her relocation allowance, Ms Weir was unsure about taking a similarly high-profile position, but her desire to be part of the revitalisation of a well-known name won out. She cannot, she acknowledges, resist a strategic challenge. Mr Daniels says: “Helen has that tremendous combination of drive, energy, judgment and a real sense of commitment. She is truly professional but fun and easy to work with, and her self-deprecating sense of humour and great laugh are really infectious.”

She is resigned to being quizzed about raising three school-age children and sustaining a marriage. Given that she is almost certain to become one of the FTSE’s few female chief executives, such questions are unlikely to go away, but it is a price Ms Weir is willing to pay.

PIECE OF CAKE

Mich Turner, named the Harper’s Bazaar & Chanel Entrepreneur of the Year on Wednesday, founded The Little Venice Cake Company just seven years ago but has already made Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s wedding cake and seen her products stocked by Harrods and Fortnum & Mason

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