This is Leaders in Finance, a podcast where we find out more about the people behind their successful career. We speak with the leaders of today and tomorrow to discuss their motivations, their organizations and their personal lives. Why? Because the financial sector could use a little more honest conversation. Our guest this episode has lived and worked all around the world before returning to the Netherlands. Is it difficult being back in Holland? “We tried to focus on the advantages that a location brings. We really tried to enjoy some parts of the Netherlands that you maybe take for granted, but I- don’t. Some things we don’t enjoy as much, and then we might move again somewhere.” Why is positivity important for the growth of the human race? “These big generational changes, like climate changes, like a generational push for society, if you constantly focus on that, it can also bring you down. You see it in young people. Then is the moment, ‘Cheer up, look at what we’ve done in the past.’ We can do some things.” And our guest surprises us with a unique book. “You’ve had such great books already here. I need to think of something that’s more out there, that maybe we don’t read. It’s about breathing, essentially.” Our guest this episode is Roderick Feltzer, Country Head of Global Payment Solutions at HSBC in Belgium and the Netherlands. Your host is Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Welcome to a new episode of Leaders in Finance. This week we have Roderick Feltzer, Country Head of Global Payment Solutions at HSBC in Belgium and the Netherlands. Welcome, Roderick!
Roderick: Thank you, great to be here.
Jeroen: Wonderful! I’m very happy you are here. Before I will introduce you, I would like to thank the partners of the podcast. These are Kayak, EY, Odgers Berndtson Executive Search and Roland Berger. I’m very glad to have them as our partners for so many years already. Thank you very much! Back to my guest. As an introduction, I will tell you the following: After a gap year in Texas, Roderick did a bachelor at University College Utrecht and UCLA, after which he completed a master in International Peace and Security at King’s College London. He then started his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the embassy in Ethiopia. Following a short period in Ethiopia, he joined as an international manager at HSBC. He remained with HSBC until this day. During his time at HSBC, he has taken up roles such as Customer Experience Manager, Credit Risk Management Analyst and Vice President, Coverage, Global Banking. The international theme of his studies remained with him during his career: with HSBC he lived in places such as New York, London, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. During his career, he completed a global executive MBA at the London Business School and Columbia Business School. Currently, he is back in The Netherlands and Belgium as Country Head of Global Payments Solutions. Roderick is 41, is married, has two kids and lives in Voorschoten. This gives us a bit of a background about who you are, and before we dive much more into who you are, I would also like to introduce HSBC. Obviously, all listeners will know the brand name and the business, but I don’t think many know a lot about the details. At least, I don’t. So, the way I love to structure that is by running through the number of stakeholders. We could start with the clients. Can you tell me more about the clients of HSBC?
Roderick: I would love to. Thank you, it’s a great introduction. HSBC is a large universal bank, one of the largest in the world. Our clients are spread across the globe as well. I suppose, from the Netherlands’ perspective, maybe most interestingly since we’re discussing that, we primarily focus on large corporate clients, but also financial institutions and to some degree, up-and-coming new economy clients. We have grown since 2012, where we started with a small number of people at some point. I believe I was the tenth employee of the group here, and now we are around 70 people, spread across different areas or client segments. Primarily client-focused or client-facing. The clients of HSBC globally are millions, and they also span across three business lines. One is wealth and personal banking, what we would call a retail client, but also up to private banking. And we have a large commercial banking division, that sets us apart from maybe some other international banks. Those are companies from smaller corner shops up until multi-billion-dollar multinationals. And then we have our global banking and markets division, where other banks have their traditional investment bank. Also, our largest corporates, financial institutions and so forth. Those are the three business line divisions, I suppose.
Jeroen: So it really depends on where you are geographically, who you are serving?
Roderick: Exactly.
Jeroen: Here, it’s more the large corporates. Whereas in other countries, maybe retail or private banking?
Roderick: Exactly. It’s due to the nature of our present history and the economy. So if you think about the Netherlands, we’ve been there for a long time, since 1999. We supported corporates more on the infrastructure side, so payments, transactions, et cetera. But then in 2012, we started the commercial bank. With this growth came coverage on global banking, et cetera. Those clients we’ve served for many decades, but from different locations. So the difference is that there is someone physically now in the Netherlands versus in the past in London or Paris or Düsseldorf or somewhere else.
Jeroen: Right. Stakeholder colleagues, there are many worldwide, I guess. Do you have a number?
Roderick: Yes, I checked the other day. We have over 220,000 colleagues, which is great. They are spread across all the geographies, around 62 markets today. They are from anything you can imagine from a universal bank. So it’s a big group, but depending on where you sit, it always feels somewhat homey. I say that specifically because large banks have centres of gravity, wherever they are based, be it in London or in our case Hong Kong, but also in New York, Dubai. There are a couple of cities where we’ve been for a very long time and there are thousands of people. I think the culture really differs. In Mexico, for instance. Because we’ve had a large retail bank there, it’s really in the lifeblood of people. The same with Sri Lanka because I was there, we had a significant market share in cards, for instance. So if everyone around you has the same card or has a neighbour or a cousin or parent working at the bank and if you’ve been there for over 120 years, it’s more a part of the society. And that’s obviously something we don’t have in the Netherlands because we came a bit later. But for some markets, that’s something that’s quite remarkable. When you travel, and you see the logo at the airports, and you feel like, “That’s a quite interesting institution.”
Jeroen: You mentioned in the Netherlands you went from around ten people when you started to around 70. That means there is growth here.
Roderick: Yes, tremendous growth. We found that there was an incredible opportunity, especially with some of the changing banking landscape, a number of banks have amended their footprint, they’ve been acquired, divested, changed focus. So there is really a need to serve Dutch companies to help them scale globally. And we are in a lot of locations where we can help them. So we’re kind of a natural fit, and we fill a gap in terms of services. So that’s been the wind in our sail. I also have to add that Brexit, even though it was painful for a lot of organizations overall, selfishly in the Netherlands this has been a huge advantage. A lot of firms all over the world who wanted to set up shop in Europe or who had a regional treasury centre in their business for payments came to Holland. So we have a significant increase in activity and we’ve also staffed accordingly. Similarly, our balance sheet and everything has been growing significantly, especially since 2018, when I moved here. That was the turning point. Not for me personally, although I’d love to take credit for that. It’s just the combination of factors of investment we did, product services and people and also the freedom to manage. We’re very entrepreneurial here. So we’ve got quite a lot of space to develop the business ourselves, which is actually quite exciting for such a large bank, 220,000 people. It’s quite rare that you can be in a position to grow the business organically rapidly, with a lot of freedom.
Jeroen: Right. That’s a great segue because I wanted to ask you about the relationship with HQ. Where is HQ, first of all? Because to me, as a total outsider, I always feel like it’s British, but it’s also Asian. So where are we?
Roderick: Well, you’re correct on both sides. Essentially, when HSBC was founded in 1865, Hong Kong was still a part of the United Kingdom. The founding fathers who set up the trading bank set up shop in Hong Kong, but also very quickly a month later in Shanghai. And it was to facilitate trade between Asia and the west. And the west also means that we had a branch in California, for instance, and Japan very quickly. So it was facilitating trade, and that’s always been its focus. If you fast-forward, there have been acquisitions of significant banks globally that will add to this network. And in a way, it’s been a conglomerate of banks, globally speaking. But it’s really focused on, “Where is the world economy? Where is trade, where are people connecting?” And that has been fundamentally the driving force behind the bank, if that makes sense.
Jeroen: Yes, it makes sense to me. But you said, “We can act quite entrepreneurial here”, is that relative? Because still, it’s a large institution, I guess there is a strong hierarchy? I guess you also need a lot of people from other locations to have teams and projects, to really serve these customers?
Roderick: It’s a very good point, and yes, as I’m often reminded by my risk stewards, boundaries on what we can and can’t do. But if you think about it, we have the brand behind us and the stability of our balance sheets, and that’s well-known and public information. But also, we are allowed to try new things, try new procedures. And we do that under governance from the internal stakeholders. But we can experiment a bit more. So when we arrived here, we said, “Do we really need to have the same amount of people that we have in the UK in the Netherlands to provide certain services? Could we not allow those people to sit somewhere else?” Within Europe, in particular, we have passporting rights, could you be more efficient around using people and services? So that is something that we pioneered years ago, and that has been adopted by a lot of other markets as well. And so, the entrepreneurial spirit is really: you have limited means, you have to prioritize and that is healthy. You focus your attention on what is important right now. Therefore, I find that quite an exciting experience. But yes, you are right, it is a large organization, and we have a strong risk culture, historically. That is also evident in the way we are structured and how we look at lending. To be clear, that is not my business today, I’ve done it many times. But we are relatively conservative, so if you look over the years, over the crises, you often see a decline in quality when things go bad. That’s when HSBC often becomes top of mind for our clients. And so, maybe in times of ease or peace, when the economy is growing, you see banks being a bit more aggressive on some parts in terms of pricing and things like that. I feel like we remain a bit conservative because we have a long-term view, and we try not to abandon clients when things happen. We have that relationship-driven approach, but it does mean that we are a little more conservative from our risk perspective.
Jeroen: I can imagine, although you are worldwide a large institution, in the Netherlands when you joined you were relatively small, so you really had to be entrepreneurial. At least from a commercial point of view. How did you get into the networks of the businesses you wanted to acquire? Is that purely through an international network, or did you go out here as well on your own?
Roderick: It’s a good question. It’s actually both. There is definitely a need from our network. So we are really a network bank because we are in so many locations. That’s our value add versus other banks, I suppose. And so, we would have a lot of companies from all over the world wanting to do business in Europe, we’d help them because then they don’t have to find another bank. That’s kind of logical. I think locally, we just started with cold-calling, “We’re here, let us tell you something about the bank.” When I was there in 2013, it was a very exciting time because of corporates in particular. So I focused at the time on corporates. They didn’t know much about us, so when they found out, they were like, “I didn’t realise you can help us set up a shipyard in Brazil, but also build a factory in China and then ship goods to the Middle East and also some of the more difficult markets where others don’t operate.” They were very pleased. So it was actually like stepping into a warm bath in some ways. And also because of the prior banks that they worked with who lost some of their network, it was a very natural fit. And actually, we had to be a bit careful as to how we grew. We had so much growth that we had to slow it down a little, that we maintained the due diligence, the risk controls, et cetera. We could have probably grown more if we wanted to, but that’s a prudent approach long term. It does mean you leave some commercial opportunity here and there along the way.
Jeroen: It’s kind of a nice problem to have, right?
Roderick: It’s a luxury problem.
Jeroen: That’s good! About the colleagues you work with here, there are around 70 people. Where are they approximately? What kinds of things are they focused on?
Roderick: We have one single office, everyone sits together very open and modern, I would say. It’s very comfortable as well, and very popular. People like coming into the office as well. We have people focusing primarily on the relationship side. The biggest cohorts are the people who are responsible for understanding the client, meeting them as a primary point of contact. But also the lending piece. Then you have my team that looks at payment solutions, both on the sales side, that is the biggest chunk. We have support in the Netherlands, but also in other markets to help implement solutions, to service clients. And also from a product management, how things work, making sure things don’t break and the IT-part. But in most of those departments, because we’re smaller than other places around the world, we try to have most things in Europe, because it makes sense with time zones. But occasionally, there is a particular product manager somewhere else around the world, and we try to connect everyone as sufficiently as we can.
Jeroen: That sounds really good. From a regulatory perspective, you’re obviously dealing with a lot of regulators everywhere in the world, but you also said that you have people who deal particularly with the Dutch environment you operate in. So you have people who deal directly with the regulator here, or is it all centralised to ECB?
Roderick: No, we have a risk and compliance function here, and they are the primary contact point for our regulator as an important stakeholder, like you alluded to. We also have the same with the ECB, so obviously we have to make sure that everything is aligned. The way we look at things is that we try to match whatever our stakeholder is. So with a client and regulator, whatever they are, we need to be to face off with them. So with clients, it’s probably how other organizations do the same thing. If they have a decision-maker in a certain location, we want to make sure our decision-maker is there as well. So we do try to mirror. Obviously, if it is somewhere very small, or you question whether or not that’s feasible, we also actively look at what we need to do where.
Jeroen: Right. In terms of competition, what would you say are your main competitors, especially in the Netherlands and Belgium?
Roderick: That’s a good question. Because we look at international activity, I would suppose global banks are somewhat less of a competitor in that space and often more of a colleague or peer. And when we are looking at financing or any types of solutions, obviously we really like competition. We are competitive in nature, I feel. We try to get the best solution for our clients, to get the best deals for them. But I see the other global international banks are our primary competitors. And on a regional basis, we have some regional competitors as well. Some of them you have spoken here. But there is not one type of competitor that we focus on, it’s just based on capabilities.
Jeroen: Right, and in lending you often have these club deals where you work together anyway. But when it comes to payments, is it just that you work with you, or are these corporates working with many other players as well, like it is with lending?
Roderick: Yes, it depends. There are different strategies, and I don’t want to speak on behalf of all of them. But I can give you some insights, from a corporate treasury perspective there are different philosophies. Many large firms will definitely have multiple banks because they do different services all over the world. But for some corporates in the Netherlands, they have chosen to be efficient, and then you might choose a single bank to do all your transactions globally. So we have some of those clients, and that’s also a result of their own staffing and own policy. So they might say, “I think this is a safe bank, they look at track records, et cetera. I’ll let you transfer all of my transactions globally. We have solutions together.” So we have some clients like that. A lot of clients will say, “Actually, I would like to hedge my bank relationships, I would like another bank”, for instance. Maybe they split it up. Some might say, “I’m going to look per country basis or per region.” So there is not one way that I see that is by far the majority. There are different strategies for treasury, and they themselves have different policies on how they manage risk. Because ultimately, that is what it is about. So it’s balancing cost and risk, but you can build a safer environment for organizations, for all of us. But you need to spend a lot on it, so then where is your trade-off point?
Jeroen: The last stakeholder I would like to discuss with you is society at large, or maybe you could call it all the large transitions we’re going through, especially from a climate change perspective, bio-diversity. To what extent are you dealing with that with your clients? Are you talking a lot about this with them, or is it just a tiny thing which has not much changed yet?
Roderick: No, it’s a really important point, and it is actually very top of mind. For me personally and my team, you could argue there is not that much value yet from a transactional perspective. But obviously, being part of the bank and speaking to clients on a whole range of topics, it is paramount in all our client activities. It’s actually mandated internally as well, we need to talk about this with clients because the whole goal is for ourselves, we have a commitment to have net-zero emissions by 2030, including our supply chain, and for all our clients by 2050, which is a bit longer, of course. And so, we are trying to help them with this transition into the new economy. There is sometimes some critique I’ve seen in the media, but the point is more, if you withdraw, you are not helping. There will be another bank from another country that doesn’t care as much, perhaps. So we really have relatively aggressive targets we try to push and dial in the right direction. So it is super important. We all have individual mechanisms, in terms of administration. We have trainings, everyone is aware. I was recently at an event hosted by an association. This topic around climate change came up, and I was surprised that there are still quite a lot of people in the market that are not that on top of things. So they don’t know some things. I think it’s also an exciting space because you can make a big difference. So working in a bank, you can make a tremendous difference in terms of financing, but also tools. But to answer your question, it is very critical, it’s something that we prioritize. I get the sense that these other banks are trying to do the same, which is only good. I hope that there will be some sort of competition around who does it best, because at the moment, if I look at – again, I’m not the expert, I’m sitting on the sideline – some of the deals, I see that there is room to improve. To improve incentives, to reduce some elements here and there, to make the change more rapid.
Jeroen: Are there particular things you can do from a payments’ perspective? Because from lending, it’s quite easy, or relatively. Maybe not easy to implement, but it’s easy what you could do. From a payments’ perspective, is there something?
Roderick: Yes, there is. With the liquidity side, there are things you can do. So, for instance, when you have cash sitting somewhere, you can build structures or products and try and let that cash work for you on the lending side. It’s not easy because there is a huge mismatch in tenor. Usually, when you put money on somewhere, but you want to finance something on the other side, there is a massive risk in tenor. So that is a bit of a challenging point. On the payment side, we can offer – and this is a discussion we have – to get a discount on transactions if you meet certain KPIs. But then clients can also equally say – and this is an active discussion we are having today, we’re open to people’s feedback on this – “This has nothing to do with my business or my corporate. I have to make sure treasury works, why are you talking to me around discounts on payments? That has nothing to do with the real world in terms of my KPIs. That’s not me doing something, that’s someone else’s organization.” So I actually feel that’s a conversation or a dialogue that is still evolving, and I don’t think it’s landed on the final stand. I think there is room to incentivise and obviously, on a microlevel, you and me and everyone who is working somewhere can make that decision. If you are working with a client, and you see that they are doing something important for the economy or the planet, you try to help them. You share a virtue of spending time with them, giving your time and energy, and maybe translate that into something better in terms of services. But I don’t think there is a final answer as to how you get the transaction landscaped and linked into improving sustainability. It’s more around the operational side, how you can do things with less energy, how can you not do something? Are you able to offset balances that you don’t have to take some actions? So taking away the cost or the inefficiencies in the world, that will contribute. I think everyone is thinking about it and is trying to look for their area, how they can contribute, if that makes sense?
Jeroen: Yes, and I think what was difficult is that you work with very large organizations that operate in many countries and one country has completely different views on it than other countries. And within countries, it is very different. I think it’s very hard as a global bank to take a really clear stand on, “This is what we’re not doing, this is what we are doing”? Very quickly, you run into a situation where you are not able to do anything anymore for anyone. It’s a bit extreme, but you get what I am saying?
Roderick: Yes, I do. And I think it’s important to really look at what you can do. As a global bank, we have a view on this and that view we try to communicate to investors or stakeholders, et cetera. Do we want to participate in getting to a net-zero economy? It is something we try to push. Whether or not it resonates with clients around the world the same way, definitely not. You see less uptake from some parts of the world, a lot more in others. So you try to play to your strengths, where can you do it well? And then you accelerate that. So that’s also a part of our values globally. If you look at the values, two are actually related to this. One is around playing to your strength, the other one around achieving net-zero. But you are right, you cannot force some things in some parts of the world. You can only accommodate. But we do speak up, and I have plenty of examples of clients over the years on different topics. Be it certification of where wood comes from, there are a lot of sustainable things that we’ve done in the background that’s not in the media or anywhere. Clients don’t appreciate it if you stick your nose in people’s businesses, but I do think it’s worth mentioning that this is happening, even below the hood. We try to encourage clients to behave a certain way. We have an opinion, that’s what I’m saying.
Jeroen: Yes, that makes sense. The thing is, if you do these things, there is immediately a large scale, a massive impact. It’s harder to be more extreme in certain things because you’re just very, very large.
You’re listening to Leaders in Finance with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: I wanted to ask you to move a little towards you as a person. As I read in my introduction, you were in Ethiopia, and you’re not with a bank at all. And all of a sudden, you’re with HSBC and apparently from there, your career at HSBC started. So, this moment was quite a big transition, what exactly happened?
Roderick: It’s funny you mention it, because that was actually one of the few pivotal moments in my life, I feel. And I need a little moment to explain it a little bit. I’ve always been fascinated by international relations, how people behave among each other, different cultures. And I’ve had people close to me in my family, role models who were in the foreign services, ambassadors, of whom I thought, “That would be great, maybe that is a career path for me.” At the same time, I had another role model who is a senior bank executive at a Dutch bank, who also represents that bank in different countries around the world. So there were two influences that I wanted to explore. I wondered if that was something I was interested in. This was at a very young age. So first, I thought, after my degree, “Let me explore the political landscape first.” It was not so much politics or bureaucracy, but basically international relations. So I was fortunate enough, during my internship in The Hague, they needed someone temporarily to help cover for someone who was on maternity leave in Ethiopia, the embassy. And because I knew a lot about the conflicts at the time, and there were a lot, the force was heating up, there was Somalia, Eritrea. There were gangs around. There was a lot of conflict, and so you need to understand the political parties. It was relevant to what you were doing. And we played an important role there, maybe outsized compared to our size of the country. Because it was a partner country at the time, that means we spent more money on it, more development corporation aid. If you look at it locally, of course, countries like the United States are bigger and more relevant. But there are not many who focus on Ethiopia. So they invited me to be there as a special envoy, in a way, a diplomat. I had a diplomatic passport. And I covered the bilateralrelations and then the multinational relations. When I was there, one thing that you don’t mentally prepare for when you grow up in Holland is extreme poverty. You see it on television, and maybe it makes you sad sometimes. But when you are there, it was around two or three weeks in, I was staying on the compound with my boss. He offered his place because it can be quite lonely going there when you are 24. And these types of countries can be challenging. I was lying in my bed and all of a sudden, all the impressions that I’ve had over the last few weeks just really overwhelmed me and I remember I had to cry. I was just so distraught, there was so much sadness and poverty around me that it was hard. I realised that I wanted to do something about this, but I also needed to distance myself a little bit. So I created a layer on my heart, another membrane layer, because otherwise it’s really hard to function well if you take it too personally or emotionally. So for me, I started looking around, and I really enjoyed the work we were doing, it was extremely important. But I also realised what is really driving the development of the people and also the environment that is impacted by the people, ultimately. Because if you care about the environment, the people are actually the biggest impact. If you can alleviate poverty a little bit, that also creates space to protect and conserve by diversity and a whole bunch of other things that I care about. So I thought, “If I can help with the economy in a country, you can lift people out of poverty or make them wealthier, and you can make better decisions.” It was a bit selfish, but that was my view to conserve the environment. Then I realised, “The best place I can do this is at something like a financial institution because they are the oil in the economy. They transfer money from people who have too much of it or who are not using it to the ones who need it.” It’s just an agent function. And then, obviously, there is the more utilitarian transfer money, because that also needs to happen. It’s just a utility, I suppose. Back then, I realised, “I can continue this path and I find it super interesting for myself from a diplomacy perspective.” And I had a contact who approached me in the past, “There is this program at HSBC, it’s kind of like being a diplomat, but then for a bank, and you get to go around.” I was like, “Okay, that sounds interesting.” So I applied for it.
Jeroen: He knew how to sell it to you, right?
Roderick: Yes, exactly. He pierced right through me. I met him in London before I went to for my degree. This guy, his name is Mark, he said, “This would be perfect for you because you have heart, you can help the bank globally, and you are adaptable.” You do need to be flexible, working in different cultures. Unfortunately, I only worked in Sri Lanka in terms of emerging markets then, a lot of the western markets also, meeting my wife and impact there. But that is fundamentally why I believe banking is super important, and actually finance in a broader sense. I know that a lot of people don’t focus on it because there have been scandals and things like that over the years. Of course, we need to work on that. But I do think people forget how important it is that there is at least a function that allows capital to move between parties who need it and who have it.
Jeroen: I have a couple of follow-up questions here. First of all, you were very young when you were sent to Ethiopia. I don’t think many people at the ministry are actually doing an internship first, but very quickly, you turn into an international employee and were sent to Ethiopia. Why did that happen?
Roderick: It’s because my degree was in international security. I’d studied a number of wars, essentially. So I understand the actors and the considerations, the incentives, what they care about. And when they were looking, the embassy saw my report. I also helped with some of them internally. I cannot exaggerate too much, but I was helping. There were not enough people in that team, so I was helping drafting paragraphs and what needed to go in our African strategy. How do you do disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration for soldiers in Africa? So all of these were policy things and because I knew topics and what was needed, the embassy saw my report. Because you send messages between the notes within the ministry. So they said, “We want that guy because he can quickly hit the ground running, and he’ll know what to do.” So it is very unusual, I was super lucky to being at the right place at the right time. And I was a little bit overqualified. Because I had my Master’s to gather all this knowledge and I came in as an intern. They immediately saw, “This guy can do a bit more than just snuffelstage, where you can look around and sniff at whatever is happening.” I think that made a big difference. So there was a bit of a gamble because normally, you would start working, you don’t take an internship after your master’s. But in that case, it paid off because it was a fantastic opportunity, and I was able to do a lot. Especially because I was young, I had no baggage, I just had energy and idealism, and also a different way of thinking. So I was able to create things there, like a consortium of countries. I would go around different countries where I would meet and say, “Can we put our money together and then fund this NGO?”, as opposed to everyone individually having to report. They’d have to send some statement, “This is where I spend my money this month or next month.” It’s super administratively heavy for these NGOs. So I was able to use some fresh thinking about how we can organize ourselves, why don’t we commit longer-term funds as an NGO? Not just one year, but five years or three years? And plus, when you pull all the money together, you have a bigger ticket. We can also agree on the reporting standards, this would be only once a year or once every two years. So I had a couple of things, especially on the human rights side around prison fellowship. There are a number of organizations that help human rights, which is my task, where we could make changes.
Jeroen: Psychologically, it was tough because of everything that was happening there.
Roderick: Yes, that was tough.
Jeroen: Have you ever been back?
Roderick: No, I haven’t.
Jeroen: Do you know whether it’s very different today than it was when you were there, from a poverty perspective? You share a lot about armed conflict.
Roderick: I think there are two sides. On the one hand, there is definitely a lot of development that the government did. And this is purely my opinion, I don’t know that much. But they followed a path of development that was a little bit different from what the western world wanted. But in a way, everyone who worked with them respected it as well. Because they see, “Some elements are more of a planned economy, with the influences of China”, which is a whole different story, of course. It’s not exactly what western governments want. A couple of times, we tried to fund something, they would not do it. Or for example, this is going back years, so this is no new information, but if a group of western governments wanted to fund education in Ethiopia and the government didn’t want that, because they needed to spend on the army, we would say, “We’re not going to pay you.” They were like, “Fine, then the schools are not going to be built.” So then finally, the western government would actually spend money and that means that the government does not have to spend money on the schools. So they knew they could negotiate well. Now, fast-forward, you see conflict, it is an extremely difficult country, they have different ethnic groups, they have different positions of power. In a way, it was never really stable at any point because you had the smallest ethnic group with the most power. You have the second-biggest group with some of the cultural power in terms of language, a very large group was underrepresented and when they got into power, they wanted to change the bounds of power. So it was not entirely unpredictable that something would have happened. And I think there is a lot more stability in some parts of the country, and you see growth, you see development of construction, things like that, there are things happening. It’s also a larger population, the population growth is quite significant. I have a very soft spot, it’s such a beautiful country, people are extremely nice.
Jeroen: It sounds like at some point you will go back?
Roderick: I’d love to go back, yes.
Jeroen: You described your own move from international relations from a government perspective to the bank. That’s quite a rational decision. Was it really that rational? Was it more in practice that someone called you up and that was an opportunity you took? Because with the benefit of hindsight, you can connect the dots. But which one was it?
Roderick: I think the rationalisation of the finance sector is definitely thought through. That was something that I already considered before going to Ethiopia. The matter was how, and what channel you were going to use. It was definitely not certain at the time I went to Ethiopia. Did I know I was going to work at HSBC? 100% not, but I did know that there was always this thing right from the beginning, what is it like to be an international banker? What can you do? So it’s always been on my mind. The way I see it, luck is when operation meets opportunity. So that’s essentially it. You prepare yourself through skills, through experiences, people you know. And then an opportunity arises. I am lucky, of course, so you have to be lucky.
Jeroen: Was there a point in the past 15 years when you thought, “Wait, I should have stayed within diplomacy and not have gone into banking”?
Roderick: Not back then, for sure. And still today, if I have a career in banking or even related that I enjoy, there’s always space to go back into more of a public space. I feel in a way that I’m earning my stripes now, I need to learn about the world, about how people behave, about managing groups, cultures, et cetera. I think it’s a natural thing to do when you’re older to either give back in terms of education or civil service. So I see that in the back of my mind, that’s something that I would love to do. Even today, if there was an opportunity to do something of both, the one thing that was such an eye-opener was the move from a bureaucracy to even though you think that a large bank is still bureaucratic, it’s nothing compared to the government. I feel like that was such a breath of fresh air, I don’t want to give that up. At least not when I’m 25.
Jeroen: Right. And if we go back all the way to the moment you were born or in your youth, can you share a bit more about how you grew up and where you grew up?
Roderick: Of course. I grew up around Den Haag, in a small village, with my parents and my younger sister. My mother flew for KLM for a very long time, and she was a bit of a frontrunner. I always see her as sort of a feminist because she was one of the first women who had children and continued to work. That was a bit frowned upon back then when I was born.
Jeroen: That’s difficult when you’re flying, I guess?
Roderick: Yes, it was difficult. She took a bit of time off when I was very young, but then went back part-time. But still, she was away for a couple of days. And I think that also made me appreciate my parents more, if you don’t see them the whole time. It also set a baseline, she has a very strong work ethic and I think that’s something. I don’t complain about things, I’ll never take a sick day if I don’t need to. That sort of studiousness. My dad worked in a bridge between diplomacy and commercial activity for the Swedish trade office. He would help launch products in the Netherlands from Sweden. One thing that he taught me is obviously that respect for diplomacy, understanding different cultures. Also the commercial angle, marketing, was very close to his heart. My parents’ work was very social, so it’s more emotional, he’s more precarious. I think that’s what I took with me in my knapsack when I started to explore. The fact that they took me to different parts around the world at a young age makes you interested. It opens your eyes. So they planned certain holidays or experiences and because we could fly a bit cheaper through the standby tickets of KLM, you could see more of the world, and that was really exciting for me. I tried to use that especially until I was probably too old to use that way of travel to still explore the world. That’s also when I went to Hong Kong, for instance, and I saw HSBC. So that was to plant seeds for later.
Jeroen: So your dad is Swedish, or is he Dutch?
Roderick: He’s Dutch.
Jeroen: But he worked for a Swedish bank?
Roderick: Again, a bit unusual, he worked for the Swedish trade mission in the Netherlands, and he worked his way up. So it was a bit unusual. Normally, there’s an expat, but he was fluent and he did a good job.
Jeroen: And what was typical for your family when you grew up? One of the things was that your mom was still working when you were young. Were there other things that maybe from the outside looked different?
Roderick: Maybe one different thing is that where I grew up, I grew up in a town called Wassenaar and that’s very famous for wealthy people, old money. But we weren’t wealthy, we were middle class or upper middle class. So we moved to the town next door as well, Voorschoten. In a way, even though you are comfortable around everyone at school, it does make you a bit more of an outsider. I think it also spurs you more to explore and look around, in a way. So I did feel that it’s a small world and that also is in a way an incentive for a push to do something else, to leave and to explore.
Jeroen: At what age did you move from Wassenaar to Voorschoten?
Roderick: When I was around eleven, I believe.
Jeroen: So you really had a big part there?
Roderick: Yes, a significant part. And so, that does shape your mind. And my parents always said since I was born, “Save money for a gap year fund.” That’s how I came to Texas and went to the middle of nowhere.
Jeroen: Tell me more, because I wanted to ask you about that.
Roderick: Sure. I went to a central Texas college, Killeen, in the middle of Texas. It takes about an 8-hour drive to leave the state. It’s huge, of course. I lived in a dorm, very few students, actually. In the brochure, there were thousands, so I thought, “It’s going to be this amazing college experience that I know from the television.” But when I arrived, it’s one dorm with sixty people, and the rest all take evening Spanish classes. So they’re technically a student, but not really there. The campus was huge, so you’d have to walk for a long time or drive eventually. It was quite lonely, because you’re coming there from a cultural background that’s very open, traditional Dutch, radically liberal, especially in the US and then being in Texas. It’s more the Bible belt, very conservative. I was there when they had the Bush/Gore elections, and they had debates. Everyone was a republican.
Jeroen: You were around 18?
Roderick: Yes. It’s interesting to be a different voice, to be a bit of an outsider again. But equally on the matters of faith, for instance, and science, I studied biology in high school and nobody knew about evolution. That was not taught. So when I described things around cell-division, randomization, they thought, “That sounds very convincing.” I got jokes like, “You sound like the Antichrist.” I didn’t know if that was funny.
Jeroen: But they accepted you?
Roderick: Yes, of course. They accepted me to be in this space. And I would be there, and that was not a problem. You’re always a little bit of an outsider.
Jeroen: This is controversial, you were saying.
Roderick: Yes. I have another impactful thing that happened that year. I’d say that is worthwhile mentioning because maybe it makes you understand me better. I was supposed to go with a friend to see a college there, I think it was San Marcos University, we were supposed to go there. Actually, I was going to with her for a weekend, and it’s a bit of a drive. And one of the days, we hadn’t decided when we were going to go, it was in March. And she came by my door in the dorm and said, “Shall we go and visit?” I was on the phone with a friend, and he said, “Wait, I need to tell you one more thing.” She left, and I said, “I’ll be there in a second.” I asked, “What did you want to tell me?” He said, “Never mind, I was just joking. There is nothing to say, you can go.” So I hung up, I walked over to the door to tell her that I can go, and I realised that I was not sure if I wanted to go. So I told her, “I don’t want to go right now.” I didn’t have a good reason not to, but I just didn’t feel like it. She asked two other people then, one of them was a neighbour of mine and my future roommate. And then they had a car accident and both of them died. The driver, the girl, survived and was in the hospital for a long time. That was really impactful because I felt like I had escaped death. And I feel like I need to do something to right that wrong, in a way. Although it’s not a wrong, if I would have gone, probably nothing would have happened. Things would have been different. There was a drunk driver that was driving backwards on the highway on the exit. So I have a certain animosity towards drinking and driving because of that. And also faith-wise, it really challenges your thoughts and beliefs, how your actions have impact and also not doing something. What does that mean? Does that mean anything?
Jeroen: But there was nothing with the phone call that made you make this decision? You were telling me about this phone call, so I was the correlation was.
Roderick: That’s the weird thing, why would my friend say that? I could also thank him, he is still one of my closest friends. He doesn’t remember it, at the time he also didn’t know. Maybe I over-analysed over the years, but it’s been on my mind a lot. All these small things, one of the guys who passed away, he was supposed to be my roommate as well. That was also awkward, everything around it made it a very odd and impactful experience. And it’s hard, because psychologically, you feel guilty. Even though you know logically you shouldn’t, but at the same time, you made a decision and two people died. That wouldn’t have happened if you made a different decision. I do feel it’s a bit heavy, sorry for this conversation.
Jeroen: As you said, it tells a lot about how you think about things. I can totally understand why it was an extreme experience for you, especially at that age. The same with the poverty in Ethiopia that you told me about earlier. I appreciate you sharing this. I also wanted to ask you, did you have people there where you could discuss this? Or were you immediately calling your parents?
Roderick: The students there, you tried to find solace in each other. But I didn’t have such a close relationship yet, I was only there for a couple of months. So it was more home, indeed. At those points, you become extremely lonely, and that’s something that I’ve learned to live with. It made me a more mature person. And when I came back to the Netherlands, this formed me into a more mature student as well. So even though age-wise, I wasn’t much older, but when I went to University College Utrecht, I had an interview and I think I didn’t even qualify from a grade perspective. Actually, the same thing happened at my Master’s degree, so maybe it’s a trend. I just approached the person and explained what my story was, and they found it very powerful. They said, “Maybe you can help us with some of the social activities in school.” So I helped drive some committees, did some things extra outside of school. And also, I ultimately sat on the Student Association Board. I do think it shapes you, going through these experiences. Maybe you call it the silver lining, and it does make you have a better perspective on what is important and not.
Jeroen: I think not many people have lived in so many places you did, because before we started this interview, you also told me about your time in Macedonia. When exactly were you there?
Roderick: After university college in Utrecht, because I did this student association volunteering or work, I graduated in December. The next degrees usually start in September, so I had some time to pass. And obviously, a lot of people, if they can afford it, they will go travelling, and I did that as well. I went to beautiful places, to Mongolia and other places. But also, I went to Macedonia because there was a student association, Aiesec, they had a conflict prevention project. And so, you could spend time with children in high school. There were seventeen the senior year in Macedonia, and they would select students from all over the world to come together and give program facilitate training around culture sensitivity. So we were given a lot of freedom, it was like, “You’re going to be there, these are your kids. Go ahead, do something.” We had to create a learning plan and the whole objective was to make the kids understand that it is okay to come from a different cultural background. And a huge eye-opening experience for me, because we were only there for a couple of months. The Albanian and Macedonian ethnic group in Macedonia, that is where the tension was or is. The Albanian kids would never materialize, the organizers couldn’t get it done. So we just had the Macedonian kids, so it was only half effective. Something that I learned there, that a lot of people might not realize, but maybe it’s super obvious to some, maybe to you as well, children are taught hatred. You don’t hate another group of people when you’re born, unless someone does something to you personally, you might react. But none of these children had any experience with the other ethnic group, so they heard stories from uncles or grandparents. All of them, we tried to debunk, that it was actually not true. They had the most ridiculous stories. And so, hopefully, by having someone who is in their early twenties, a student from oversees, we are more influential than your average teacher or parent. Because at that age you are rebellious, and you watch TV, it’s a globalised world. So you had an outside impact, I believe, on some of these children. And so, we tried to show them that it’s okay to challenge some of the assumptions that people are feeding you, and that it’s better that you can work together. It was a lot about trust-building. It was a short program, but something like that worked. There were 20–25 kids in that class, a couple of them really changed. They later went into politics or worked for international NGOs and tried to make a difference, I don’t know where it led them, but even if you change one person, it’s quite valuable. I wish there were more of these programs.
Jeroen: Yes, that sounds beautiful!
This is Leaders in Finance with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: What I wanted to ask you, you’ve lived in all of these different places. We just spoke about a couple of them, it’s a bit too much to discuss them all, although it would have been interesting. But to what extent is it hard for you to then settle here in the Netherlands? You grew up here, but still, you have seen all of these different places, you’ve compared them, you’ve seen good things here and bad things there. Ultimately, have you become this stereotypical expat that finds it hard to settle somewhere? Or did you actually find your place, and you really want to stay here?
Roderick: I think that’s a good question. It’s something that is also impacted by your partner and your situation. My partner is from the States, and we always talk about it. We recognise some really valuable things in some parts of the world and what we really enjoy. Most of our family life or friend world are between the US and the Netherlands at the moment, even though there is a large part also in the UK. We try to focus on the advantages that a location brings, so we really try to enjoy some parts of the Netherlands that you maybe take for granted, but I don’t. Because I really enjoy it. Some things we don’t enjoy as much, and then we might move again. We’re not permanently settled in the Netherlands, I want to spend time here also with my parents who are getting older, and I wanted them to see the kids and be near. And also being away for so long, I felt like it was the right moment, career-wise, everything-wise. And the question is: will this be forever? Probably not. I think we’re looking at probably moving back to the States. I’m not sure when yet, but it’s a good question because it’s hard. And when you meet other expats, some really fall in love with Holland and stay forever. But it really depends on where you are coming from and what your options are.
Jeroen: What kind of parent are you, what kind of dad are you? How would you describe yourself there?
Roderick: I think I’m still figuring that out a little bit.
Jeroen: How old are your kids?
Roderick: They are really young. One is four and a half and one is one and a half, or a bit older. In September and October, they turn five and two, two boys. One is extremely active, so he’s very busy, ADHD, kind of busy. And maybe neurodivergent, we’ll have to find out. The parenting style for him is very different from a common kid. And for my younger son, it’s therefore also different. But they are so young that my sole goal is to make sure that whatever I do work-wise, I also create a lot of space for them. Because that is one thing that I always hear from everyone you speak to, when they look back on life and especially when they are older, “I wish I didn’t work so hard, I missed my kids growing up.” That is a stereotypical thing to hear, so I make sure that I make time in the evening. So I have in my calendar, “Do not book except when it’s important.” Because nothing is black and white in the world. And then I spend time with them, and in the evening I can continue working if I need to. I prioritise them, but in terms of values and things like that, I don’t know yet. I’m trying to make sure they listen to different music, for instance. I think they are a bit too young at this point. I try to expose them to different things and parts of the world.
Jeroen: Make sure you don’t tell them any negative stories about certain minorities and things like that, after your experience in Macedonia.
Roderick: Exactly.
Jeroen: At 80-90% of the interview, we always have the pleaser and teaser. The teaser is more related to your work and the pleaser is about books, as you know. On the teasing side, I’ve written down: When it comes to the Dutch banks, they will feel continuously more competition from foreign banks. Ultimately, they will be much smaller than they currently are, when it comes to the Dutch home market. Do you agree with that?
Roderick: That’s a good question. That’s hard, actually. Maybe the trend of shrinkage of size is a more effective technology and buying behaviour, people’s behaviour. Because if I look at ourselves and other international banks, we’re not targeting the domestic market just by itself. We’re targeting the international organisations. So if you are a purely domestic organisation, would you benefit from having a foreign bank? Only if that foreign bank truly localises. If they develop their products and services. It is possible if you were a more regional bank that tries to do exactly what you hint at. But for the global banks, I don’t see an immediate strategic sense. It’s, in fact, more the opposite, where we pull out some elements in markets where we realise that if you can’t be the top three or maybe top five, don’t do it. I think that’s a healthy business strategy. In that respect, I don’t think we would ever directly compete for the domestic market or any of the Dutch banks. But you are right, if you are a regional player, that makes a lot of sense. And then you can see consolidation because generally, and also from what I’m reading in the media, there are a lot of banks in Europe relative to other places. So my expectation would indeed be that it reduces in the amount of banks. But I think time will tell between these global international banks and regional and local where the balance will lie. Maybe you’ll have a few strong regional banks, for instance.
Jeroen: On the pleasing side, do you like to read?
Roderick: Yes, I do. I wish I had more time for it, but I try to prioritise it when I can. But it’s hard when you also care about the news, which I also like. So I read an international newspaper that I enjoy. So books are the second tier. But yes, I do.
Jeroen: So where do you get your news from? What is the newspaper you prefer to read?
Roderick: I like The Economist. But I do find that somehow you get into a sphere of people who all read the same thing, and then it’s not very exciting because you need different opinions. I need to make sure I read enough non-Economist things.
Jeroen: You’re one of the few guests who actually took a couple of books here to the interview, which I really appreciate. Is there a particular book you like to discuss here and share with our listeners?
Roderick: Yes. You’ve had such great books already here, I needed to think of something that’s more out there that maybe has not been read. But what I thought was quite eye-opening was a book called Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. It’s about breathing, essentially. I think that struck me is that there is no medical science today, there is nothing you can study around breathing. We just have the concept of how your lungs function. But not what you do with it, how you breathe and the impact it has on your health, and also our species. Some of the things I’m sure are a bit more controversial than others, in terms of out there thinking. There are obviously a lot of stories where they seem too good to be true. But the way we breathe also shapes our faces, for instances, our sinuses, our jaws. It’s the same with chewing, for instance, and the fact that our food is more processed, we don’t chew as much anymore. That also narrows our faces, I’m one of them, I feel like a have a super narrow face. And I feel like I need to chew more. It really is an eye-opener around a part of health, I suppose, that is underrepresented in the media. It’s a very insightful book. There are a lot of tips, which I haven’t followed.
Jeroen: There isn’t a single thing you’ve taken from the book?
Roderick: Of course, there is. But there are a lot of things you can do, but it takes a bit of focus, I suppose.
Jeroen: In thinking, yes. But is there something in practice you took from the book that you actually do now?
Roderick: I do, yes. One thing I sort of knew, but was re-emphasised, was: don’t breathe through your mouth. It may be obvious. Also children, so if I catch my son sleeping with his mouth open, I close his mouth a little bit. There are some more extreme versions, but that is really important. Another thing that we don’t realise, if you are into sports, there is actually a lot you can do with breathing that improves your performance. I’m not a huge sport person, I like working out, but for those people who care about sports, if you want to get better at whatever you do, the breathing is a significant game-changer. And the fact that breathing out more and holding your breath is not bad. Maybe the way you do it, but having more CO2 in your blood is actually good. So that’s maybe how we’ll help climate change now. I’m kidding!
Jeroen: I really appreciate you bringing a completely different book. This is not a standard response to my question, so thank you very much! You wanted to discuss another book as well?
Roderick: Yes, most people would know this, it’s a bit more mainstream. It’s definitely an instant classic, Steven Pinker’s book, Enlightenment Now. I would really recommend that book, I really enjoyed it. It’s more of a description of how we view the world, a lot of good things are happening. But when you look at the media, it’s easy to focus on the negative side, it draws more attention, more people are going to listen. But actually, positive things are happening in the world. There is a number of influential books and studies on this topic, but it’s basically showcasing the improvements we’ve made as human beings, how we’ve evolved as a society, how we’ve combated poverty, and it turns it a bit around. Not having a negative view over everything, but more of a positive view, an enlightened view. There’s a lot of information in there, but if you want to have a bit more of an uplifting experience, but also very science-based, it is not just news clippings or whatever, it is regular science, I would recommend that book.
Jeroen: As a person, you’re overall optimistic about where we’re going in this world?
Roderick: Yes, I think that’s why I picked this book because I think I’m very optimistic in general. I’m always a glass half full kind of guy, and I think we need to be. Psychologically, it’s better for us. Everything you do in life is better if you’re an optimist, I feel. And there is a lot of data out there that also supports that.
Jeroen: Everyone has negative experiences, you will have for sure, I will have, everyone has. But still, we are in a position where it’s great to be. I’m thinking about you lying there on your bed in Ethiopia, crying for all the poverty you’ve seen. Is that also because you’re optimistic, you think? Or do you think, as a species, we’re doing better than we did before?
Roderick: I think that experiences can push you or incentivise you, like the one in Ethiopia, to do more or to behave in a certain way. But as a species, even though we are growing and improving on certain things, there is still a lot more to do. I think that’s maybe a general theme that you see everywhere. So I would see both sides. Yes, we need to sometimes stop, pause, reflect and be like, “Wow, what we just did is great. This is really good, let’s do more of it.” If you are always looking at the negative side, the same thing with these big generational changes like climate issues that we talked about at the beginning, that is a generational push for society. If you constantly focus on that, it can also bring you down. You see it in many young people. Then is the moment to say, “Cheer up, look at what we’ve done in the past. We can do some things.” It’s more of a reminder, I suppose. It’s not to diminish the urgency of anything, not at all. I think you always need to be balanced in your life, just like with the breathing. I think the ideal breath for those who don’t want to read the book is 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out. But it’s about this balance, if you do that, it flows, and I think that’s also psychologically how you should approach things.
Jeroen: Thank you! I’ve asked about 135 guests on this show the same question, which is: do you have a tip for someone who is starting his or her career at the moment? Or maybe a tip to your own 25-year-old self, it doesn’t matter, or something particularly for the financial services or more generally speaking? It is really up to you where you would like to take it, but do you have a tip?
Roderick: Of course, I’ve got loads of tips. if you’re not sure where to work, finance has had a different reputational impact over the years. And I feel like you can do a lot in finance, I think we can use more people with a certain idealism. Maybe I’m a bit selfish here, because that’s how I got there as well. But also, if you’re a listener, and you’re thinking about things around finance, it is a very broad field. We have people from all over, I have great people who have studied chemistry, and whatever, from all over. But the big tip I have is: be proactive and don’t take no for an answer. So if you’re somewhere, and you see a job or an experience or a position, and you’re not sure, try to just go out of your norm and do something, show yourself. The examples I’ve had with my degrees where I actually didn’t qualify for something. Again, you need to be able to afford it, it was not very expensive, but I flew to London. I just sat outside the door of that mission’s office and I waited for someone to come outside. I said, “This is my resume, I want to study here.” And he was so surprised that he shook my hand, and he admitted me on the spot, I didn’t have to do anything else. So be bold sometimes. I don’t see it enough, if I look at people who try to apply for jobs. Everyone is impressed if you just show up, that is half the battle.
Jeroen: I love how you put it! The final question from my side is, we’ve covered a wide range of topics and I know there are always many more we could have covered, but I think we have a great idea of who you are and what you do, but is there something you really would have loved to have shared here?
Roderick: Thanks, that’s a very good question. I think we’ve highlighted a number of the pivotal moments in my life, from Texas to Ethiopia. I think one more thing that maybe is worth adding in Sri Lanka, for instance, is that culturally, we are very different. But you can work together and achieve great things. What I learned there and in other markets, we didn’t talk too much about diversity, but as a general concept and especially in finance, I think it’s something that we need to be mindful of. Just like how we talked about young people, what you can do to be different and stand out, equally when we make decisions as a group, I notice a huge difference if your team is diverse from a background perspective. Both professionally, but also individually. It does mean sometimes, and I’ve had this in Sri Lanka, I was among peers, socially, and I realised that some parts of humour do not always translate well. I realised that is a bit of an odd thing to learn. I didn’t find the jokes very funny. But later on, I realised that’s okay, you don’t always need to have the same humour. But professionally speaking, it’s super important to not always have everyone like your joke. In a way, it shows you that you have different perspectives. And when you are delivering a service to people, people are different; they’re not all the same. I think that whole thinking process around adding value beyond the individual components is super valuable. That’s something I’ve seen all over the world, and I see where we don’t do well. In my department or somewhere in the bank it’s not going well, it’s often that, that people are too much the same. I think we just have to be mindful of that for everything we do in our lives. If you look around and everyone all of a sudden looks the same or sounds the same or has the same humour, maybe there is a better way of doing things. That is the only point that I had to think of.
Jeroen: That’s a great point, thank you so much! Roderick, thanks for taking the time to speak to Leaders in Finance. I really appreciate how you openly spoke about vulnerable moments in your life, as well as great successes, about work. You’ve taken us to different places in the world, which is also great. Often, it’s about just the Netherlands, this was a much wider conversation, geographically speaking, but also in terms of topics. Roderick, thanks a lot for taking the time, I have a small present for you, which I learned you already have, because you bought the book. It’s the Leaders in Finance’s book with the first hundred guests. But I will make sure you will get the second book as well in the future when we cover the next hundred. And you will be in there, with a signature, that’s fine. So Roderick, again, thank you so much for taking the time!
Roderick: My pleasure. It was great, thank you!
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