CEOInterviews.AIQuinntessential Questions #6 with Jean Nabaa Global COO, Leadership Qualities Unlocked

P

Paul0:12

Hi guys, welcome to the podcast. Today we are joined by a very good friend of mine, Mr. Jean Nabaa, who operates in a very commercial capacity as the Global COO for a major bank. We follow his journey, being born in Iran before moving as a child to Lausanne in Switzerland, before embarking upon a tremendous journey in the banking sector. Initially started off as a consultant with McKinsey, got his MBA from INSEAD before moving to Singapore where he worked with Merrill Lynch, which later on became Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and most recently was Standard Chartered. He's had a long tenured career and is about to embark upon his new chapter, which we're looking forward to talking about during today's show. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Cheers Jean, welcome. How are you?

J

Jean Nabaa1:04

Thank you Paul, I'm good thanks. How about you?

P

Paul1:06

It's brilliant, so good to see you. Thanks for doing this podcast with me today. So what I wanted to do today is really talk about what your career journey has been. Maybe you could be kind enough just to share a little bit of color about where you were raised, born, and what your life was like as a child.

J

Jean Nabaa1:26

Sure. Well, I have a pretty international background. First, I was born in Iran, because my father was working in Iran at the time. So you have to think late '70s. Born there just before the Revolution in Iran, and then of course right away because of the Revolution the whole family had to leave the country and we went to Switzerland, which is where my dad was working initially.

P

Paul1:50

How old were you when you guys moved?

J

Jean Nabaa1:52

I was like a few months old. So basically I remember nothing from Iran and grew up in Switzerland primarily. Then lived a few years in Morocco, again as my dad traveled around the world. He was working in a big Swiss multinational, so that's how we ended up in different countries. He was their general manager for different regions. The company is the predecessor of Novares at the time, in chemicals. So a lot of traveling as a family in my younger days.

P

Paul2:22

And where in Switzerland did you land?

J

Jean Nabaa2:26

So we first lived in Basel, the Swiss German part of the country, but later on as I went on to study we moved to Lausanne, the French-speaking part, not too far from Geneva.

P

Paul2:36

Beautiful. And then growing up, I know you're a bit of a sportsman. What sports did you do growing up?

J

Jean Nabaa2:41

A lot of different things, but tennis was the main sport back then. A bit later on in life I picked up golf as a sort of real passion, but tennis was the beginning.

P

Paul2:49

Who's your top three favorite tennis players of all time?

J

Jean Nabaa2:52

How can I not mention Roger Federer, you know, being Swiss. Of course Roger, in my mind, despite the stats, still the greatest of all time. But over time, getting to like many other players. So Rafa Nadal, even though I used to hate him back in the days of the Big Four, I actually now really appreciate him very much. Years ago my team and I had an offsite in KL and we saw Sampras playing with Federer. It was a friendly, and the thing is with Pete, everyone said he was a little bit boring on court. And this guy in the crowd was heckling, saying 'play a little bit better, we've paid money to come and see you.' So Pete took his tennis racket and said, 'If you think you could do any better, you're more than welcome to.' So I like the banter. These are all my favorite players growing up: Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, then Pete Sampras, and then Roger, and now of course the new generation. But I'm an old-school guy, so I like the single backhand, I love watching the double backhand, I like the style, the elegance.

P

Paul4:00

So then what happened? You went to Lausanne for university?

J

Jean Nabaa4:02

That's right. Went there, studied economics and econometrics. Always good at math, always loving math, liking numbers and dealing with numbers. And from then on when I graduated I started my career in Switzerland in consulting actually.

P

Paul4:22

And how long were you there before you came to Singapore?

J

Jean Nabaa4:26

Well, in total in Switzerland something like 20-25 years in total. I moved to Singapore first in 2003 to do my MBA.

P

Paul4:32

Oh, that's what brought you to Singapore.

J

Jean Nabaa4:34

That's right, with INSEAD. So I started the MBA on the European campus south of Paris, and then halfway through the program switched to the Singapore campus. Funny story, it's actually my neighbor, a Singaporean friend, who told me, 'Johan, why don't you try the Singapore campus of INSEAD?' You have to think this is back more than 20 years ago. And I said, 'Look, yeah, maybe, why not.' So ended up listening to him, coming here for initially one period of the program, but decided I loved it, finished the MBA over here, and then the rest is history. I actually did go back one year to Switzerland because I was sponsored by McKinsey, who asked me to go back first to the Swiss office, and then McKinsey sent me to the Singapore office. I think that was back in 2006.

P

Paul5:21

So McKinsey, I've heard that sometimes you're on the road maybe 50 to 70% of the time. Was that the case with you?

J

Jean Nabaa5:28

It was absolutely the case, and in fact to be frank, I loved it, especially in the early years. So you have to imagine, I joined them when I was 22. And at that age you end up serving clients in different parts of the world, you're on the road literally every week. At the time for me it was fantastic, learning so much in terms of problem solving, learning about industries, helping clients. And of course, to your question, the travel was part of it. But at that stage in life it was something I was actually looking forward to very much.

P

Paul5:57

So were you specifically on the financial services side from day one, or did you do a stint in different industries?

J

Jean Nabaa6:02

So in the beginning it was lots of different industries. I worked in railways, shipping, financial services, crop protection, fertilizers, all sorts of industries in my first three years. Including banking and financial services, and somehow I developed a natural affinity to financial services. And then you end up sort of specializing and doing more and more of one industry, which is exactly what happened to me. So I did a lot of corporate banking, then wealth management, retail banking, and that's how I ended up specialized.

P

Paul6:31

Well, if you think about private banking, one of the things I love with private banking is that the customer base is so varied, so your experience probably would have helped in some ways.

J

Jean Nabaa6:43

Certainly. And you have to think about private banking as also a continuum of clients. It starts with retail individuals who one day become perhaps wealthier and therefore your target market in wealth management. So plenty to be learned across that whole spectrum. Interestingly, even having been in private banking for many years, very few people talk about that, right? Where you have a client through the whole life cycle, and then the next generation and beyond. That's I think the way to think about it if you want to really grow a very sustainable business, especially if it's in the context of not a pure-play private bank but of a bigger institution. That's certainly the way to think about it.

P

Paul7:19

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, you actually had oversight for building out their Moroccan business when you were with McKinsey?

J

Jean Nabaa7:26

You have very good memory. That's right. So I was back then in the Swiss office, and then one of the Swiss office partners of McKinsey was in the process of setting up an office in North Africa. You have to think this is probably almost, yeah, no, it is more than 20 years ago actually. At the time my parents were still having a place in Morocco, so there we were in Casablanca. Morocco, the economic center is really Casablanca. So we ended up going there for a few months, starting to meet some first clients, public sector clients actually at the time.

P

Paul8:02

And how cool was that though, going back?

J

Jean Nabaa8:05

Fantastic, very entrepreneurial. Again, we had no office at the time over there, so we were in the living room of my parents' house, with printers printing documents, going to meet clients with pitches. I love it. That was just a few months, then of course the whole infrastructure followed. But the very beginning was very exciting to be part of that venture.

P

Paul8:24

So you're in McKinsey when you started working in banking. Was it specifically private banking on day one?

J

Jean Nabaa8:32

No, day one was all financial services in general, serving different banks. One very large Swiss bank, and then a long time serving a regional bank, they call them cantonal banks in Switzerland, across all segments. But over time, and that's natural when you're in Switzerland, doing more work in wealth management and private banking. And that's how the specialization came gradually over time.

P

Paul8:53

Do you think, for some of our younger audiences listening, it's almost like you're doing a stint in each organization, you get a flavor of what type of company you might want to work for later on if you move in-house, right?

J

Jean Nabaa9:04

That's exactly I think the way to characterize a career in consulting. If you think about it, that's the best way when you're out of university or studies to get to know really what's out there, discover different industries, and most importantly be exposed to people who are really experts about those industries. Because let's face it, when you're a young consultant you bring your analytical skills but you don't necessarily bring a lot of industry expertise. However, you work with people who have years if not decades of experience in those industries, and as a result your learning curve is tremendous. So that's something very valuable, especially when you're an undergrad or even with an MBA. It's a great experience.

P

Paul9:47

And what were the key things that you were doing during the prime time when you were at McKinsey? Was it strategy consulting or a bit of everything?

J

Jean Nabaa9:55

Certainly there was a lot of strategy work, but also operational excellence type of work, efficiency, productivity initiatives, sometimes innovation. It's really a very wide range of initiatives, which again at an early stage in a career is extremely valuable because you get to discover and learn about different things and see also what you like and where your passion is, so that you decide how to orient your career at a later stage.

P

Paul10:18

So what was the transition to joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch?

J

Jean Nabaa10:22

So yeah, at the time first Merrill Lynch, because you have to think this was before the great financial crisis. That was 2006. So I was in Singapore at the time with McKinsey, in the Singapore office, having a great time. But after seven, eight years at McKinsey, thinking about what's next. And what was a little bit missing for me in consulting was the ownership of really something, you know, not just a recommendation. Three, four, five months of great work perhaps, but just standing up with a set of recommendations that someone else needs to really implement. So I was missing and looking forward to really seeing things through all the way to implementation. And that's when an opportunity came about. Merrill Lynch was looking for a team doing business development and strategy, really helping them expand their wealth management business in Asia Pacific. So that's when I decided to make the switch to Merrill. And look, with Merrill back then, they were a very dynamic organization, very different culture. Back then Merrill Lynch, pre-Bank of America days, was still one of the world's largest wealth managers. Really huge in the US. You'd recall people referring to their financial advisers as the Thundering Herd. I think back then more than 15,000 advisers. And they had a nice international business, small in comparison to the US domestic business but quite sizable. The agenda back then when I joined was really about growing international, growing Europe of course, but growing Asia Pacific even more. So it was very exciting to be doing work around setting up new offices, trying to set up new ventures or joint ventures. One of the biggest things I did there was to work at setting up and then expanding a huge joint venture with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. A 50/50, in fact 51-49% ownership joint venture between Merrill Lynch and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which was extremely successful for quite a few years.

P

Paul12:31

I remember. How did you navigate that journey? Because the nuances of working with an American bank, Japanese bank, completely different.

J

Jean Nabaa12:38

Well, I actually love that part of my career because it was extremely exciting to be kind of negotiating the terms of the joint venture with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi team. It really starts with listening. You have to listen, come with an open mind, and realize that ways of working are going to be very different between an American institution and a Japanese bank. Each of them in their own way remarkable, but very different. So the starting point is to really listen and adapt. Because the joint venture was in Japan, the view was that we should really follow primarily Japanese customs or ways of working. So that meant, for example, pretty long negotiations, sitting at the table for hours. Of course we had to do this with translators, so it took quite a bit of time. But it's a lot about really listening: what are their objectives in the partnership, what are our objectives, thinking about what each party is bringing to the table, where do we bring something that the other party doesn't have. But that's how it ended up being an extremely successful joint venture with very large assets under management.

P

Paul13:42

Amazing. One of the things I asked you years ago was when you look back at the best period of your career in terms of growth, I think that's what you were referring to, this period, right? Talk to me, if I said to you your career to date, the best quarter of your career, and I don't mean in terms of revenue per se, but in terms of career growth, was that it?

J

Jean Nabaa14:07

This was probably it, or definitely one of the top few experiences, for various reasons. First, I think is the sense of ownership and clarity of mission. I knew exactly what I was in charge of and what I was supposed to do, and I had a lot of autonomy to make it happen. So believe it or not, I was the lead person for that partnership. So sitting at the negotiation table with very senior counterparts on the other side. That's really remarkable.

P

Paul14:33

Because you were still very young back then, right?

J

Jean Nabaa14:36

Pretty young. But again extremely focused on the outcomes and what I had to do, and wanting to certainly not disappoint the people who put me in charge of this transaction. So yeah, definitely a period that I enjoyed tremendously. Extremely hardworking, very long hours. But when you enjoy what you're doing and you have real passion in what is happening and you see the purpose of it, actually the hours, you don't feel them. You don't even notice that it's taking a lot of hours because it's so interesting and exciting.

P

Paul15:08

I think one of the things I've realized with people that have been very successful in their careers is that they have embraced the challenges and have taken ownership and underwritten the problem, like 'leave it with me, I'll take care of it.' And that really differentiates people that are assembling their career on their journey to the top.

J

Jean Nabaa15:28

That's completely right. First of all, that's something you want as an individual. You want to be given the autonomy and the authority to make things happen. But that's also probably how a manager would want to see his team members doing and operating, because you're basically helping them solve their problems. So that's the mindset that you need to take, to really be in charge, say 'the buck stops with me, I need to make it happen and bring solutions to the table.' There'll be lots of challenges and issues along the way, but your task is to bring solutions.

P

Paul15:59

Now, I just want to understand what happened. So at that point, I know you left. How long were you with the firm?

J

Jean Nabaa16:07

That was about almost eight years. And the reason I left was because, again, you have to rewind. Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America during the great financial crisis. And then at the scale of Bank of America, there was a different view on strategy when it came to international markets. Bank of America decided that outside of the United States they would be doing institutional and corporate business, and no longer individual wealth management or private banking. So the business was actually put on sale. The whole international, including Asia Pacific, of Bank of America Merrill Lynch wealth management was put up for sale. Excitingly, I was actually part of the team selling and pitching that business. There were three of us in Asia, above the wall, on the transaction. And that was actually in itself a very interesting thing, being on the road and selling your own business together with the then CEO and CFO of that business.

P

Paul17:07

Touching upon that, I've worked with a lot of practitioners where on their resume, let's just pretend reverse engineering, they've been involved in the acquisition of another bank, but if for any reason they didn't win the acquisition they don't put it on their resume. And I say, why? You've spent 18 months on this project. There are a lot of takeaways from that. Do you know what I mean?

J

Jean Nabaa17:29

You're absolutely right. There's plenty to learn, and there's plenty to learn from being on both sides of a transaction. I've been on both sides and you learn different things in the two different situations. So being in this case on the selling side of the transaction, you learn a lot about how the employees or the team being acquired feels about the transaction and what is essential to make it a success. In this case, wealth management, it was all about successfully transferring clients with their assets over from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to the acquirer, which was Julius Baer at the time. So you really have to understand what is going to make a difference for clients, for relationship managers, for the product teams, for pretty much everyone, to make the entire transaction a success. Because otherwise you can have a deal but then ultimately it fails because you're not moving over the business as you intended to do.

P

Paul18:24

I think in private banking, when we look back years later, it was one of the more successful acquisitions for sure.

J

Jean Nabaa18:31

For sure. I think it was probably also in Asia one of the earliest and biggest transactions. After that there were quite a few others, you know, Societe Generale, and then Barclays, etc. So this transaction was in 2013-2014. I think it closed in 2013.

P

Paul18:47

And why did you decide not to stay on with Julius Baer?

J

Jean Nabaa18:49

So look, there was an opportunity to go to Julius Baer, again great firm, great institution. But at almost the same time, Standard Chartered was looking to hire a Chief Operating Officer for their global private banking business. So that happened at the same time. The role was based in Singapore. And you have to rewind again, 2014. Standard Chartered, which is still doing great today, but back then was just on the back of almost a decade of fantastic growth. Standard Chartered had avoided the great financial crisis, was growing very aggressively, but punching below its weight in wealth management and private banking. So they were looking for a new CEO for their global private banking business. So that opportunity came along, and that's when I decided to take it rather than stay.

P

Paul19:40

Well, think about it. There are only a few organizations whereby you could be the global head based in Singapore. A unique opportunity, right?

J

Jean Nabaa19:47

That's right. And that was for me clearly a criteria. I wanted to stay based in this part of the world and preferably even in Singapore. And this was an opportunity to be in a global role out of Singapore.

P

Paul19:56

So was it specifically just private banking at the time?

J

Jean Nabaa20:01

So it started with private banking. And you know how things go, once you're in an organization you start with a certain scope and then it expands. So I started for I think it was only nine months or so just as the CEO for the global private banking business, which at the time was still relatively small. But then a few months later I took on the responsibility for also their wealth management business. So what wealth management refers to is the product unit effectively distributing investment products to all clients of Standard Chartered. So I was the CEO for that unit as well as the private bank. And then again a few years later, you know how things go, you take on another responsibility. So in my case, about five years ago, I became also the CEO for the global retail banking business of Standard Chartered. Now you're talking about really a pretty large-scale business. And then eventually, when we organized the bank as an overall consumer, private, and business banking unit, became the CEO of that unit.

P

Paul21:02

You know, I've had the privilege of working with some fantastic COOs, but one of the things that really set you apart I feel is that you're very commercial, because you're very business-driven. And is that because of your background on the business development and strategy side, perhaps?

J

Jean Nabaa21:19

So that could be a reason. Maybe also other things I did earlier in my career, I was also doing things like sales management, sales support, so really working very closely with the front line. But ultimately I think the answer is more that, as a CEO, you must care really about the commercial performance of the business. In fact, that's one of your top responsibilities. The way I always summarize your responsibilities: first of all, you have to ensure the client outcomes, client satisfaction is there, that's one of your top responsibilities. Second, you have to drive risk management, business risk management as a first-line business risk owner. And then third, of course, anything around productivity, efficiency, cost management is also your responsibility as a CEO. So all of this means that being very commercially oriented is an absolute must-have for any COO.

P

Paul22:17

So I'm curious, when you take on a new division, like the retail business which is huge, once you've sat down and spoken with all the major stakeholders, what do you do? Do you take out a big sheet of paper and say, right, this is what I need to do intrinsically over the next 6, 12, 18 months?

J

Jean Nabaa22:34

Yeah, I mean, pretty much that. So first of all, you have to take time to understand the business. And let's face it, when I started to cover retail, I was no retail banking expert. I had a sense about retail banking like everyone, as a customer and also from my years in consulting a long time ago. But first you have to understand the differences between retail banking versus wealth management. Now one of the beauties of retail banking is that it's about managing at scale. You cannot have some of the more tailored approaches or solutions that you have in private banking or wealth management. So you need to build for scale with super robust processes that can scale. You cannot build in manual interventions or things like this because it's the beginning of the end if you're running a retail bank. So you have to look at it with that lens. And then, as always, the first thing you have to make sure you have is a top-quality team in place. That's number one, because there's no way you can be successful in those large roles on your own. You need a top-quality team. So assessing everyone on the team, making some changes.

P

Paul23:40

How do you do that? So when you're sitting down and you're meeting all these people, does Standard Chartered have, for example, psychometric tests that you can refer to? Or are you just having a one-to-one and trying to get an inside track to the way that they think?

J

Jean Nabaa23:53

Yeah, so you use really multiple sources of inputs and information. Tests when they're available, or assessments when they're available, of course. Performance evaluations from previous managers, of course. Talking to peers, talking to other key stakeholders. And then my own personal interactions, solving problems, seeing how people operate. You take all of this into account. And of course you need a bit of time. I wouldn't make those decisions in a week or two. You take at least three to six months to form a proper opinion. And based on that you decide how to reconfigure the team. And extremes are never good. If you make zero change in a team, probably it's going to be a challenge because you're not going to get as much new energy and drive. But also if you change the entire team, it's probably not the right thing either, because more likely than not there are some very strong members on any team. So it's about doing the right adjustment to the team.

P

Paul24:48

My observation of you, again, which is quite unique, is that you have remained an absolute team player, a very objective leader, but you haven't fallen into any specific camps. You've navigated, really been impartial and doing what's best for the business. How difficult is that?

J

Jean Nabaa25:07

I guess being Swiss and being in this part of the world, a minority, probably helps. So it's probably ingrained in me. There's no point to try and build a team that is concentrated with one nationality or one type of background or one type of people coming from the same organization. I'm a true believer, I know it sounds cliché, but in diversity, but true diversity, not just ethnic or nationality but cognitive diversity. So as a result by definition you'll end up taking people from different backgrounds, some from your organization, some from outside. And that's how you build really a team that is perceived to be best in class. And it helps to not have excessive concentration of anyone background in a team, because then people notice, people around realize, hey, you're not building a particular group or clique or entourage of people. You're really assembling a team based on the merits of all the individuals. That meritocracy is so important.

P

Paul26:08

When you look back at your career, what are some of the top leaders in terms of their qualities that you've really admired and you've tried to inject into the way that you drive the business?

J

Jean Nabaa26:21

I won't get into names of individuals, but I'll tell you what I picked from different people. And it's funny, these are things I picked up along my professional life in my three places, the three places I've worked at: McKinsey, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Standard Chartered. Some of the features you have to keep in mind, well, I think fundamentally having very strong problem-solving skills, analytical skills, is essential in this type of roles. You need to think straight, think logically about problems. So the ability to decompose a complex problem or situation into more manageable pieces.

To know where to start and how to tackle it is essential. So that bit around problem solving is something I certainly picked up from a few people in different organizations, but a lot in consulting. Some of the senior partners I worked at are just remarkable, and even still today, engaging with them for advice on something. That ability to really problem solve is essential. So that's number one.

Number two, I've picked up from some leaders an amazing ability to connect with people. This ability to listen to people, make them feel that they're being listened to, that you care really about them, is essential because that helps you unlock the best out of people. So I've picked this up from some people.

And then from some other leaders, I've picked up the very strong client orientation. That habit of thinking about every decision you make, including risk management decisions, with the lens of a client. That you never do something that will end up hurting; you want the opposite, something that will end up helping your clients be successful and prosper. So those are some of the things I picked up from different leaders in my career, and I try to adopt and practice those habits in my own work.

P

Paul28:16

Well, I think the best lead is, I love all of that. Those qualities are inextricably linked, and if you can develop all of them, now you've got a world-class leader. One of the things you and I talked about a little bit is, my take is as your career rises to the top in any industry, you then become responsible in some element for sales or generating revenue. Doesn't matter if you're a teacher, you're trying to attract more students if you're the principal of the school.

For me on the sales side, I feel in private banking it's definitely there, but I'm curious what you think. Do you think that sales is an area that the banks look at in detail, or do you think it's overlooked to a certain extent?

J

Jean Nabaa29:06

No, I think sales, the commercial engine, is essential for any bank, and if you're overlooking that you're going to have challenges further down the road. But in wealth management in particular, I don't see it as sales in the sense of aggressive push sales. What is most fundamental is really to have that long-term connection with clients, building a long-term relationship, looking out for their interests, really clients' interests, because if you do this, by definition you're going to have a successful business.

That client will give you more assets to manage because he realizes that you're genuinely helping him grow his portfolio. That very same client will end up referring his friends, his family to you, and that's how you end up being successful. And this is rarely the result of a push sales approach. It's actually the result of an advisory-level approach where you build for the long term with clients, and with that mindset then the sales performance will follow.

P

Paul30:06

Exactly, agreed, big time. Now look, just coming off work a little bit, one of the things I wanted to ask you about is cars, because you and I both love cars. But you've bought a few classic cars over the years. Where did this love start?

J

Jean Nabaa30:18

Yeah, it's an interesting one. It is indeed a hobby. I like classic cars, I'm not crazy about it, you know, right? So still reasonable, especially in Singapore. It's not easy to do it. I think this came probably out of an interest first of all, you know, as a boy driving cars, playing with cars.

Then I like to get my hands dirty, understand how it works. Lifting the hood, understanding under the bonnet. I used to, before having children, I used to do a lot more things hands-on. Kids change everything, right? Kids change everything, less time. But I'm curious to know how the engine works, the different parts, the components across different models. So there's an element of really understanding how it works.

And then on a lighter note, maybe there's some deeper psychological reasons. Maybe as a kid you grow up seeing cars you cannot drive. Now 20 years, 30 years later you can get those cars and drive them. So that's how I got into it.

P

Paul31:16

But I think there's an appeal to some of the older, what we call classic cars, right? They're timeless. I mean some of the cars I look at now and I just think, oh, I don't even know if that car looks good now, but in five years from now, I'm assured it won't.

A friend of mine tells me there's one thing you need to do whenever you step into a classic car, say a car that is more than 30 years old. You sit down at the steering wheel, close your eyes, and picture yourself back in those days, when you would have been driving this. What was happening in the world at that time. Buy a few magazines, you find them very easily on eBay, magazines from those years, whatever it is, 70s, 80s, and you see what the world was. So it's an interesting way to travel in time, actually.

We're talking about closing your eyes. The other day someone said to me, 'Are you in the car?' I said, 'Yeah.' And he goes, 'What are you driving now?' I said, 'Well, today's Thursday, so I'm driving the S-Class.' He goes, 'Flipping heck, what were you driving yesterday?' And I said, 'Oh, I normally drive the Porsche on Wednesday.' So he goes, 'Well, how many cars have you got?' I've got one for each day of the week, he said. 'In Singapore?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'That must be phenomenally expensive.' And I said, 'No, mate, every time when I'm looking out over the steering wheel, I just imagine a different car. It's a lot cheaper.'

But one of my favorite cars, I had a Shelby Cobra, which was stunning. But the thing is, when I lived in the US, things were a lot more affordable there. But here in Singapore, you've got to be a little bit more frugal.

J

Jean Nabaa32:43

Yeah, but you know, an interesting thing about classic cars, we'll see what happens to them, especially as there's more and more electric cars around. So there's one school of thought that thinks that what might happen is a little bit similar to what happened with watches. If you recall, back in the 80s or 90s, there was a lot of people very skeptical about the future for mechanical watches, saying, why do you need a mechanical watch when you have all the smartwatches coming, electronic. There's going to be no need and this is a dying industry.

And look where we are. The last 10 years for the classic watch industry, the regular watch industry, has been amazing. So the jury is out there whether the same will happen for some IC type of cars.

P

Paul33:25

Well look, my favorite watch still to this day is a retro Casio watch. Because wherever you go, if you're in the wilderness or whatever, I haven't changed the battery for about eight and a half years. It'll work, right? I have two of these. My daughter's favorites as well.

J

Jean Nabaa33:43

Mine as well. Actually, when I went to Cuba back in 2022, that's when you realize how American Muscle still looks good today. But I think they could overhaul those cars now, put new engines in, and it's a game changer.

P

Paul33:58

Okay, so coming back to work then. You're leaving Standard Chartered. At the point when you resigned, what was the oversight and purview, and how many people were under your responsibility?

J

Jean Nabaa34:13

So when I decided to leave Standard Chartered, I was the CEO for what we called the Consumer, Private and Business Banking unit. Actually it was renamed Wealth and Retail Banking in my last couple of months there. So that was effectively about 45% of the bank in terms of revenues.

It was covering all individual clients in the bank, from mass retail all the way to ultra high net worth in the private bank, as well as the lower end of corporates, so small and midsize corporates. Large corporates being on the institutional side of the business.

So exciting part of the business. As the CEO, I was effectively helping with all support teams front to back, driving client experience, driving risk management, driving productivity and efficiency for the business.

That COO role in my last few years with Standard Chartered also included a responsibility for operations, the actual operations team. So as a result it was a very large team, close to 6,500 people.

P

Paul35:20

And how many staff did you support?

J

Jean Nabaa35:23

So this was to support a business of probably 40,000 employees. So now that 6,500 that I was in charge of, it was actually a much larger number when I started in the same scope, that number was close to 10,000 people.

So the reduction over the years was the result primarily of some natural attrition but also of all the digitization, technology transformation agenda. Driving straight-through processing across all key areas in the consumer and private business, driving automation, and as a result the need for much less manual work. And that's a journey that is still ongoing and will go on for quite a few years.

P

Paul36:04

Well, the thing about technology, what's new today is old tomorrow, right? So how important has that journey been, the digitalization and technology, and for you, when you look at your career moving forward, what percentage of your time do you think has to be dedicated towards that?

J

Jean Nabaa36:20

Technology is essential, right? It has always been essential, let's face it, for the last 10, 20 years it already was. But if anything it's going to become even more critical because the pace of change is accelerating.

You need to drive this transformation for a few reasons. First of all, better client outcomes, because generally digital processes are straight-through and fulfilled instantaneously. Imagine as a client, you have a request, if you do it digitally on your app, it's done right away, versus having to call a contact center or walking into a branch or seeing face-to-face your RM.

So you need to do this first of all for client experience. Second, you need to do this for efficiency, to drive your cost-income ratio as any financial institution. So it's a must-do, otherwise you fall behind competitors when it comes to cost-income ratio.

And then this automation and digitization makes you scalable. You can scale, grow your business without having to add constantly hundreds or thousands of people. So you must do this, and with the advent of more and newer technology it's just going to keep going and accelerating.

The way I look at it is that in particular with AI, machine learning, generative AI, pretty much any activity that you perform with a computer, with a laptop, and is somewhat repeatable, you can potentially replace it and have a bot effectively doing that task for you. Of course you need to train those bots, train those engines.

But once they're trained, by the way that training is not too different from training a colleague, an employee in the bank. But once you've trained the machine, the machine can then do it at scale. So we're just in the early days of that transformation at the moment. It's exciting but scary.

P

Paul38:09

Scary. So your reporting line and the structure at Standard Chartered is really interesting because you report to the CEO, but also functionally, is it that you have a CIO, Chief Information Officer, and COO, someone who wears a dual hat?

J

Jean Nabaa38:25

That's exactly right. So it's not too uncommon, having a dual reporting line as a COO. You report to the CEO that you support, and you report, in my case, to the group COO and CIO.

P

Paul38:36

Now what I meant was unusual was the combined role of your CIO and COO, because that's not that common.

J

Jean Nabaa38:44

That's not that common, you're right. More often than not, group COO and CIO are separate, but every now and then organizations put them together. And look, there are merits to doing it that way. The linkage between COO and technology, when you put the two together, is phenomenal. So that brings down some barriers, makes it easier to collaborate.

So in my last three years, since the setup is in place, my degree of collaboration with tech teams has gone up massively, and I've learned a lot by being so much closer to the technology teams, while remaining at heart a very business-oriented person.

P

Paul39:18

Just on a more granular level, I'm curious, when you're working on big projects and you know okay this is the deadline, sometimes I find a lot of perfectionists, myself included, how do you stop working on the project and move on to the next one? It's like, I can do more, I can tweak this. How do you deal with challenges like that?

J

Jean Nabaa39:38

That's inevitable. You will always have that tendency to try and keep doing more or adding the final touch. But at some point you have to realize, and apply the 80/20. Once you realize that marginal effort is going to bring only very marginal benefits, so that one hour spent on this project will just give you a little bit of marginal gain, you realize that it's probably not the best use of your time.

So you have to make a conscious decision to say, hey, that one hour invested would yield so much more impact starting to work on a new area or topic where there's a bigger problem to solve. So you have to have that mental discipline and kind of stop loving your pet project and move on to the next thing. It's not necessarily easy, but common sense has to prevail. The rational thing is to move on to get bigger impact all the time.

P

Paul40:26

So if you don't mind, I just want to unpack some things. When you look back at your career and as you look forward, what are the key things to remaining balanced, you know, physically, mentally? Because when you take on a lot of pressure as the global COO, you're married, you've got kids. Share with us your journey and what we can learn.

J

Jean Nabaa40:46

So the first thing on the professional front, one thing I'd say is you have to be in a role that you enjoy. If you're not in a role that you enjoy, if you don't like or have pleasure going to the office every day, I think it's a very slippery slope and probably a dangerous situation to be in. So that's number one, really don't stay in a setup where you're fundamentally unhappy and not enjoying what you're doing.

Now, assuming that is the case, so you are in an environment where you're enjoying your work, looking forward to that every day, then what you need is to find some balance. In my case, one of the things I do is I try to draw a line clearly when I come home. If I'm not working at my desk in my office at home, I am 100% with my family.

So really try to draw the line clearly. There's hours during which, unless something is really critical happening at work, you will not pick up the phone, because you're taking care of your children. In my case, putting the daughters to bed in the evening. So that has to be non-negotiable.

Weekends for me are also quite protected. Can still work a little bit Friday evening if you need it, but then Saturday day and the bulk of Sunday, nothing. And then I pick up work maybe Sunday evening when again the kids are in bed, time to do something else. So you have to set some boundaries, because otherwise it could be 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop work, and that's really unhealthy.

And then what you need to have, at least in my case, is some personal activities, important things that matter to you, and spend time on them. And those things change over time. Since I got married and have kids, my family is for me by far the most important thing outside of, and in fact before, work. So that's what I spend most of my time on.

But before that, a lot more sports, a lot more travel, a lot more activities. And those things just evolve over time. There used to be a time where I was playing golf at least once a week. Now I think this year, just twice in six months. So very different, very different thing because of different priorities. It changes, it evolves.

P

Paul42:59

Well, for me now it's completely different because it used to be me with my three kids like trying to get them to go out, teaching them how to cycle. Now I'm struggling to keep up with the older kids.

J

Jean Nabaa43:13

There you go. I think you need to find whatever makes sense for you. When people ask me the same question, I tell them, think about what makes sense for you, find a place that you enjoy working at, and then find the balance by doing what really matters to you. And those things are different for every individual, and again they change over time.

P

Paul43:31

Well, as we get older, I realize now health is glaringly obvious, and mental health. But when I look at some of the most senior, most dynamic leaders in our industry today, they are very conscious, because it's a marathon. And if you push your career really hard for 10 years, no exercise, whining and dining clients, you can hit a brick wall.

So you have to find that balance. You have to think about what is important to you, and some people react differently. For some people it's a minimum of whatever it is seven or eight hours of sleep. Some people might get away with a bit less, but there's no miracle. You can't do with four hours of sleep for years without consequences.

So you have to find that balance again. For some people it's all about diet, what you eat or what you don't eat, what you drink or what you don't drink. So you have to think about it really holistically.

J

Jean Nabaa44:24

Yeah.

P

Paul44:27

Now I just want to touch upon this, so you're married to a Singaporean lady?

J

Jean Nabaa44:31

That's right.

P

Paul44:33

So your kids are rojak like I am. I love that. I'm objectively impartial, but I think mixed children are just beautiful. How did you navigate an interracial relationship?

J

Jean Nabaa44:45

Very easily. This came quite naturally. When you're living here for a long time, in this part of the world for quite a long time, it comes as almost a natural or non-event. And I think the culture of people in Singapore is also so open, so international, that it's extremely easy.

P

Paul45:03

Exactly. My dad was Irish, my mom was Chinese Singaporean. When they got married, unfortunately his parents didn't approve because he was marrying a non-white lady, and he was raised Catholic, she was Methodist, and they didn't come to the wedding. And my dad never spoke to his dad again. And I look now at our children, and it's completely different. So I'm very grateful for that.

J

Jean Nabaa45:30

You're absolutely right. I think also what is important, and that's something my dad insisted on a lot, adapt also to the culture of the place where you're living in. Blend in, follow the local customs as opposed to try to impose your own way of thinking. So if you live in any place with that mindset, it's actually very easy to set up in that place and build relationships with the local community and enjoy it.

P

Paul46:00

So just to wrap up, I want to understand, as you look to the future, what are the key things that you will personally take on to develop your career, your own training and development? Are there any key themes like AI that you're looking at?

J

Jean Nabaa46:14

So I think all of this, all the technical skills I've acquired over the years, all my learnings, I will bring all of this to my next roles. I think some of my key learnings is to really focus on the essentials. If I look back at what I focused on in the past, I realized probably that I spent way too much time on relatively minor issues or topics that in the grand scheme of things didn't really move the needle.

So that's one of my biggest takeaways for my next role: to really focus on fewer but higher impact areas and put all of your energy in there. Technology will certainly be behind some of those topics, whether it's going to be particular initiatives to drive growth or to drive automation or efficiency. So that's really, without going to specifics.

P

Paul47:07

I find that very interesting because one of the dichotomies I feel in our industry is that most CEOs, whilst they're talking about five years from now, they're really being measured not even annually, it's quarterly and monthly. And I think sometimes moving the needle on what's most impactful in the next six to 12 months is so important. Can you give us a couple of loose examples?

J

Jean Nabaa47:30

Yeah, so I think what you have to do is probably focus on kind of two tracks at the same time. You need to focus on short-term performance, because especially if you're in any company that is listed, with shareholder attention on your results, you need to make sure that every quarter you deliver the numbers. So you need to do this, but in parallel you need to build for the long term.

And for that, if I take wealth management for example, it's about making sure you have the right platform, the right capabilities. If you're in a universal bank with different client segments, it's about making sure you have the right platform to support a continuum of clients growing through the life cycle and the value chain.

That means a lot of technology work to ensure you have the right platform for client service, for products, for advisory, etc. So that dual track, again, short-term results but also building for the long term, is essential. Otherwise you're going to pay the price for it sooner or later.

P

Paul48:29

It's going to come back on you. If I may, just one last thing I really wanted to ask you. So if you're sitting down with an employee, or conversely if you're sitting down with one of your bosses, how would you approach going into an appraisal, a discussion about your career, trying to get a promotion? What kind of advice can you give on that?

J

Jean Nabaa48:49

So I would take the two bits separately. First, if I'm talking to my boss, to my CEO for example, I would always look at things from the perspective of that person. In fact, that's something I do in all my one-on-ones with my managers. I always prepare for them and bring a list of topics of what I think they should know, what I think is of interest to them, where they can help me, or where I can do something to help them.

So it's really solving things from their perspective. This mindset of putting yourself in someone else's shoes, I think, is essential. And it works actually with everyone. It works with clients, it works with your manager, it works with your team members. It takes a little bit of mental effort to think that way, but I think it's essential because it allows you to have really the impact that you're trying to get.

I have historically rarely been aggressive in asking, 'Hey, I want to do this, I want to do this next job.' My philosophy is if you do a great job, it gets noticed, and then people will naturally give you more things to do and more tasks to take on over time, because they say, 'Hey, he fixed this for me, let me ask him to fix this other thing or grow this other piece.'

So that's a little bit my philosophy, as opposed to trying to aggressively pitch for more work. I think good work and good outcomes happen to people who do a great job. It gets noticed. So that's with my senior stakeholders.

When it comes to my team, I think it's all about being really transparent and clear about what you expect from them, and then assessing them accordingly. I have no issue having difficult conversations as long as we were clear upfront in terms of what was expected.

And then what is really essential with your team is to understand what makes people tick, and behave accordingly. So adapt to the style that is needed to get the best out of different people on your team.

Some of my team members are extremely self-driven, operate independently. So with them it's a very light-touch type of support, only getting involved when needed to help on specific issues, but otherwise pretty much letting them thrive. And then I'm just the gardener, providing the right conditions, a bit of water, a bit of sunlight, and then letting them thrive.

With other colleagues you need to be more hands-on, you need to maybe help them a bit more in the beginning, coach them, and in rare cases, make stronger, bolder decisions if they need to be replaced. So it's all about really adapting. That word of adaptability, being adaptable, is essential in any organization.

P

Paul51:34

Do you think it's important for people to physically and figuratively walk the floor? Because I think it can happen where people become very insulated in their role and within their team, and no one outside of their immediate team knows who they are. And I think that's where things are lost.

J

Jean Nabaa51:52

I think it's essential. Now let's be clear, we also have to be realistic in today's world. You don't need to do everything in person every single day, and especially if circumstances require it, working from home because of what happened during the pandemic is necessary.

But in normal times, or now for example, it's essential to be really present. See people. There's an element of getting a feel for what is happening in an organization or in a team that it's very difficult to do on ad hoc Zoom calls. You need to be there. You pick up small hints from people, body language, etc. So it's essential to do this.

And if you're too much out of sight, you at some point become out of mind of people. So you've got to stay relevant, stay in people's minds, close to people. Nothing replaces every now and then having a meal with a colleague, going for tea, going for a walk. Actually, I do that a lot. In a lot of one-on-one catch-ups, if I don't need to take notes or look at documents or numbers, I actually go for a half an hour walk.

P

Paul53:07

Of course, if that person is fine doing it, it's fantastic. Because first of all you clock in some steps, so not a bad thing. But then you think differently when you're walking. It's a little bit less personal. You solve problems differently.

J

Jean Nabaa53:25

What do you say to them? You say, 'Hey, Paul, listen, let's go down,' instead of, 'Do you mind if we go for a walk?' rather than sit here. And 95% of the time it makes sense. Unless it's raining or something, just do it, try it out.

P

Paul53:40

I do it all the time, and I think some people think it's a little bit strange. So I'll say, 'Look, rather than catching up for a beer, do you want to go for a walk in MacRitchie?' Because actually it's a good way to, it's just very relaxing as well, very engaging.

Well look, I'm really excited about the next chapter of your career. You've done fantastically well so far, but thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

J

Jean Nabaa54:07

Thank you, Paul. That was great.

P

Paul54:08

Jean, it's been a pleasure.