New York Rabobankers - true team
PLAYERS
new york
What's NewS Issue 7 November 1995
11
While the New York office has its own regional responsibilities for clients and business, its
190-strong team also provides inhouse expertise in all areas of banking for both the US
network and Rabobank co-workers around the world. As New York is one of the largest
operations outside the Netherlands, lack of space unfortunately prevents us from profiling
all its activities. But here is a small bite of the Big Apple's approach to its main business
sectors and the networking essential to its success.
Asking Barbara Hyland, New
York's agribusiness and com-
modity/trade finance manager,
about her department's activ
ities can turn into a litany of
praise for the people she works
with. She mentions who they
are working with and how the
networking has grown. Al-
though doesn't call it network
ing. It is stronger than that,'
she says. 'I think it's a very
strong sense of team-play,
across North America but also
truly internationally. Because
that's what we are all about.
Of course we're strong on agri
business here, but it's the inter
national agri-commodity focus
that really wakes people up.'
STRUCTURING TRADE
Hyland has just completed her
first five years with Rabobank
and things have changed quite
dramatically in that period. 'A
decision had just been taken to
carve out a niche for the bank
in commodity finance and Ling
Tsou was brought in at the
same time as me to start up
structured trade finance. She
now heads up a whole team
dedicated to that business.'
FOCUSED TEAMS
Hyland's group also comprises
a number of other focused
teams. 'John Grieco heads up
the commodity/food import
finance group. They deal with
coffee, cocoa, sugar she says.
'The third dedicated team we
lan Reece, Corporate Banking
have is what we loosely call
"Other". Nancy O'Connor
manages that and basically
they work with grain, cotton
and some powdered milk bus
iness.'
FROM GRAIN TO
TELECOM
In addition to the dedicated
teams, Hyland and her people
work closely with two industry
specialists. 'That's Charles Hal-
lock and Adrian De Young.
They are involved in pure mar
keting for our side of the bus
iness,' she says, 'while on the
corporate side, Dick Schulze is
focusing on health-care, but
you should ask lan Reece
about that - it's his area.' Back
on her own area, Hyland says
we shouldn't forget the East-
coast agribusiness team - 're-
porting to Joanna Solowski,'
she adds promptly. They do
New York's traditional agri
business from Maine all the
way down the coast to Virginia
and their largest sectors are
poultry, dairy, and grocery-
store chains. 'All of these
people are, in fact, my im-
mediate world, my group,' Hy
land says. 'But clearly we also
provide a lot of expertise on a
nationwide level to our co-
workers around the country. If
you take the export side, the
export structure and export
finance, then basically we sell
country coverage to US expor-
ters. And those exporters are
across the country. They range
from the grain houses we deal
with actively here, to telecom-
munication companies which
has just started up in Chicago.'
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
This type of business involves
a lot of Eximbank medium
term financing. 'So,' Hyland
believes, 'our structured export
finance people have a clear
focus. They want to get both
sides of the transaction for the
bank - that means speaking
not only with exporters out of
the States, but also with the
importers and their banks
across the globe. And if our
office in, say, Brazil, is not yet
dealing with the cliënt, we will
arrange introductions and they
do the same for us. Brazil is a
good example here. A lot of
cotton went there from the US
earlier this year. The exporters
Barbara Hyland, agribusiness
and commodity/trade finance.
wanted coverage so we found
it for them.'
PHENOMENAL
NETWORK
But this same cooperation we
have with Argentina or Hong
Kong, wich is working on
some very interesting business
in China 'we're involved in
that, too,' Hyland adds. We do
a whole lot of cotton business,
back and forth, with Australia,
and we have a fair number of
mutual customers there. Many
of our US clients have trading
companies that cover Europe,
so obviously we work closely
with London and Rotterdam.
A large number of people ship
through Rotterdam so our
people there supply the oper-
ational services and we swing
credit facilities back and forth.
You know, when you think
about it we truly have a
phenomenal global network.'
HEALTHY BUSINESS
Hyland's corporate co-worker,
lan Reece, is located rather
closer to home. And his team's
focus is also more domestic -
although 'domestic' covers a
chunk of territory many times
greater than many countries.
NEW YORK - BIG APPLE
Barbara Hyland (Agribusiness Commodity Finance), lan Reece (Corporate Banking) en Charles Trainor (Treasury) spreken enthousiast over
hun ervaringen. De nadruk ligt op de intensieve samenwerking met Utrecht en de andere buitenlandse kantoren. De treasury voert tegenwoordig
alle financiële markten produkten, zodat klanten op hun wenken bediend kunnen worden.
Het is een voorwaarde om onze internationale klanten wereldwijd te kunnen bedienen. Om aan de toenemende behoeften van klanten te kunnen
voldoen voert de treasury tegenwoordig alle geld- en kapitaalprodukten.
