'Acbieving is a moral
responsibility.
s
s
talking heads
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Budapest's general manager Tamas Simonyi makes no bones about it: he is
ambitious, and he even admits to a need to achieve. It is a character trait that
is still rare in post-communist Hungary. So besides ambition to prove himself
to both the outside world but primarily to himself, his other great driving force
is motivating the people around him.
16 What'sNewS Issue 5 May I
In his impeccable, quintessentially
polite-sounding English-English,
Tamas Simonyi's talk of ambition and
the nature of a need to achieve, sounds
everyday and anything but aggressive. But
the man whose approach to the business
of deal-making has been likened by
Hungary's financial press to Wall Street
tactics is no apologist. He has been
measuring performance since he was a
child at school. 'Throughout my 40-year
life,' he says, 'I have somehow understood
that if you can deliver, if you can put in
the performance, then the fact that you
are somewhat outspoken or critical will
be tolerated.'
imonyi brushes aside the notion of
growing up in a wholly repressive regime:
'I was privileged,' he says. 'My mother
was an achiever in the banking world and
enjoyed a lot of professional recognition.
We had relatives in the UK and were able
to travel because the system allowed it.'
is need to achieve and to measure his
performance against a real benchmark led
him to the Hungarian Central Bank where
'they were fighting off national
bankruptcy by turning everything we
could into hard currency. We were quite
successful at that.' Along with real
command of the language, he seems to
have taken on the unparalleled British
capacity for understatement. His time in
Japan was another challenge that he just
couldn't resist. This was the first time ever
Japan and Hungary had set up an
educational exchange program. 'It was a
political thing; I was supposed to be
studying the intricacies of Japanese
banking,' he recalls. 'After the first six
months learning the language - the
hardest learning process I have ever been
through - no one seemed particularly
interested in showing me anything.'
H e solved the problem of what do with
his remaining 12-month scholarship using
Tamas Simonyi - self-confessed overachiever
a bank of public telephones in the Tokyo
business district. 'That's where I learned
to sell,' he grins. 'I started by selling
myself as a financial consultant to mid-
sized banks with international aspirations.
It was a steep learning curve, but by the
time we had to leave Japan, I was pretty
successful at it.' After much soul-
searching, Simonyi and his financial head
hunter wife Andrea decided not to return
home. 'We were offered the opportunity
of settling in Australia and at the time,
things weren't looking good in Hungary.'
I n Sydney, Simonyi worked for a
Japanese bank where he picked up a hint
of what investment banking could be. 'But
we didn't do much, some bond trading,
nothing particularly exciting,' he explains.
So when an Austrian bank offered him the
opportunity of returning to Hungary and
setting up investment banking activities in
this most advanced of the former East
Bloc countries, he was keen to give it a
shot. After building the Austrians' name
and positioning it among the top five
banks, he joined Rabobank where he
confronts a different challenge - the
integration of investment and commercial
banking. 'I had always loved the business
of business,' he says. 'Doing deals is what
drives me, what motivates me.' And
investment banking is essential deal-
making, doing deals on the run. 'So I like
investment banking,' he grins. 'But
commercial banking can be just as
exciting. And in Hungary, one can't exist
without the other.'
As an admitted and confirmed
overachiever who has to take all his fl
vacation at one time if he is to relax at all,
how does his relentless drive affect his
team? 'Motivating people, infecting
people with my own will to achieve is the
thing I love best after making deals,' he
says. 'Historically, people were not
motivated in Hungary. They were sloppy
and morale used to be so low. You'11 often
hear people - including myself - say that
we are a 90-percent nation. Why bother
giving your best when 90 percent will do?
Given that scenario, then I think our team
puts in a performance which is quite
incredible. We're even overachieving.' He
reckons he is softer on the team than he is
on himself. Tm always pushing them, but
one has to be careful not to push over the
edge. Finding good people in Hungary is
still the single biggest challenge.'
imonyi has just returned from his
annual vacation and Rabobank Hungary
was still standing. 'That's a great feeling,'
he says, 'to be able to go away and for the
whole operation to continue to run
reasonably smoothly.' What did he do on
his vacation? 'Travel, of course,' he says.
'I think it's almost a natural trait in
Hungarians to travel as much as they can.
If our GDP rises 1 percent, then foreign
travel expenditure goes up by 30 percent.
Even though I had many opportunities to
travel throughout my life, I'm still
irrepressibly curious about other places.
I love to explore but I do have a threshold
of civilization that I will not cross.' And
every time Tamas Simonyi goes away on
his vacation and manages to switch off
the deal-making mode, he realizes with M
crystalline clarity that there is a lot more™
to life than work. Unfortunately
- or maybe fortunately for Rabobank - he
promptly forgets the minute he walks
back into the office.
