Published: February 02, 2008
Peter Lohk’s career has spanned Norsk Hydro, SEB and Fokus Bank over the past 16 years. While at Norsk Hydro, he gained experience not only in Group Treasury but also as Regional Treasurer in the United States. Working outside Group Treasury can be an extremely valuable experience for treasury professionals who want to gain a deeper insight into the day to day business and get involved in a broad range of treasury activities. This can often be more difficult in Group Treasury where roles and responsibilities are more narrowly defined. Peter’s breadth and depth of experience in corporate treasury, and the skills he developed working with local subsidiaries, have been important contributors to his success in his subsequent banking career.
I joined Norske Hydro in 1991 straight from university. I was employed in Group Treasury and spent the next five years at the company’s headquarters in Oslo working with FX, short-term money market, internal funding, trade finance and cash management. We had a very closely integrated structure and subsidiaries were obliged to use the ‘in-house bank’ for all of their cash management, foreign exchange, funding, money market, guarantees etc needs, and Group Treasury controlled which banks they should use. During this time, I developed a strong sense of customer service, and delivery, and gained experience in all aspects of treasury and the Norsk Hydro Group.
I spent a lot of time with the local CFOs to ensure that changes we were proposing were beneficial for the individual subsidiary as well as the group as a whole.
In 1996, the decision was made to expand the company’s treasury operations outside Norway to accommodate our growth in Asia and the Americas. One treasury professional moved to Singapore and I was expatriated to Tampa, Florida as Regional Treasurer for Norsk Hydro Americas, Inc. and tasked to build up a local treasury department there. At that time, we had around 35 subsidiaries across Latin America, the United States and Canada with diverse requirements. Norsk Hydro was still a conglomerate, with three primary business activities: oil & gas, fertilizers and light metals (although the oil & gas business has now merged with Statoil creating StatoilHydro and the fertilizer business has been listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange as an independent business - Yara International ASA).
What quickly became clear was that the further subsidiary companies were geographically from the Oslo headquarters, the more difficult it was to convince them to comply with, and understand Group Treasury’s requirements and regulations - in Europe, it had been quite easy, but there was far more selling required in the Americas, expecially in the United States. So I spent a lot of time travelling, taking time with the local CFOs to ensure that changes we were proposing were ‘win wins’ - beneficial for the individual subsidiary as well as the group as a whole. During that time, I recognised the value of good selling and enjoyed it too!
The time I spent in the United States was extremely beneficial for me and as well as improving my golf handicap, I was involved in a very wide range of day to day treasury activities, including closing and due diligence for a number of acquisitions in the US, internal and external financing, hedging challenges in Latin America etc. I would not have been involved in such a breadth of activities had I stayed in Group Treasury, so it was a great opportunity. Although I had intended to stay only two years, I finally left the US in 2001, five and a half years later, when my visa expired and a locally employed Regional Treasurer took over. One thing I did before I returned was to ensure that my return to Oslo was as smooth as possible - companies are often very good at expatriating their staff but often less attention is given to repatriation.
While I was fortunate to have a ‘soft landing’ on my return, it wasn’t easy to readjust to a Group Treasury / HQ environment. Whereas in the US, I had been involved in a wide range of activities, the breadth of my role in Oslo was inevitably more restricted. I didn’t have any plans to move, however, and it was not until SEB contacted me that I decided to move into banking. The day I resigned from Norsk Hydro was probably the most difficult day of my career - it was with a great deal of regret that I left, with the warmest of regards for the people there and the experiences I had. [[[PAGE]]]
When I joined SEB as Head of Cash Management, I wouldn’t say I was a cash management expert. I had been very fortunate to gain experience at Norsk Hydro which is one of the most sophisticated cash management players in Europe. Ten or eleven years of experience in the treasury of a large corporate is invaluable experience going into a bank and you don’t need to be specialist in the nitty gritty to add value - customers are looking for their bank to understand their business needs, create a vision and put the tools and people in place to deliver it. At the time I joined, SEB’s business in Norway was mainly restricted to Norwegian subsidiaries of Swedish companies which, to be honest, was rather a dull portfolio! With the existing sales team and later with some additional people I hired, we kick-started our sales activities so that we were in a position to compete effectively with the Norwegian banks. As a Swedish bank against Norwegian competitors, we were the underdog in every sales situation, but we used all the tools at our disposal. With the right brand, the right products and excellent people, we became very successful. When I left SEB in June 2007, the client portfolio had developed immeasurably, with a large complement of Norwegian mid-corp and large corporations amongst our clients.
Developing sales skills and developing an internal network of contacts within the bank was key.
I had very mixed feelings when I moved from SEB to Fokus Bank (a wholly owned subsidiary of Danske Bank) in October 2007. I had a great deal of respect for the people I worked with at SEB, the branding and products were both strong but I couldn’t see a clear career path in Norway. I felt I had been very successful, and like Bjorn Borg, that’s probably the best time to move on! The move to Fokus Bank gave me new opportunities. While I am still working in the cash management space, I only see that continuing for another year or so, at which time I’d like to progress into a new area such as relationship management or another leadership position within Fokus Bank.
Inevitably, I had many meetings with banks during my time at Norsk Hydro which was a great experience for me. I know how corporate treasurers think, what they want to see and hear. For example, I know a corporate treasurer doesn’t want to sit through endless powerpoint presentations, which is often a trademark of many bankers. I try to use very few slides, I listen to the customer and ask questions to understand what really matters: what the problems are and what’s working well. So far, I think this approach has worked well and allows me to empathise with treasurers, CFOs and cash managers. To succeed in any career is probably a combination of personality, skills and experience and Norsk Hydro was a fantastic training ground.
I needed to learn how a bank works which is quite different to a corporate. At Norsk Hydro, my customers were all internal, who had no choice but to use Group Treasury as their bank. When I joined SEB, the situation was completely different, and every situation was competitive. Developing sales skills and developing an internal network of contacts within the bank was key. When I joined SEB, I probably only knew between seven and ten people within the bank; by the time I left, I worked with a network of some 200 people. It was important to know who to go to for solutions, advice and senior management support in any customer situation. When I joined Fokus Bank, I spent my first months focusing primarily on developing my network, taking the opportunity to get to know as many people as possible in both Oslo and Copenhagen.
I would suggest you go for it! Cash management is a good area to join from corporate treasury - it’s fairly broad in its scope and is at the heart of the bank. In Norway, we have seen an increasing number of corporate treasury professionals being recruited to banks from companies such as Telenor ASA, Norske Skogindustrier ASA, Yara International ASA etc. In addition to corporate treasury professionals’ valuable skills and experience from which a bank can benefit, it is often very expensive and cumbersome to recruit people from other banks where people may have to spend three months or so on ‘gardening leave’, whereas you may be able to bring in a corporate treasury professional more quickly. Clearly banks need to be careful not to recruit too many people from their key customers to avoid damaging the relationship, but corporate treasury professionals have a wealth of experience which banks are keen to tap into.
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