'The hardest decision is do
certain things...'
talking heads
For a number of years not too long ago, F&A's global business manager Peter
Greenberg occupied an almost unique position - he was one of the first non-
Dutch senior managers in the international network. Times have changed since
the mid-1990s as the organization has grown global in more ways than one. The
cultural anthropologist turned commercial banker looks back on more than a
decade of change.
What sNewS Issue 11 'November 1998
Peter Greenberg laughs to himself as he
comes up with a metaphor for the way
the bank in New York used to be ten
years ago. 'You have to understand that
for a commercial banker specialized in
F&A, specifically commodity trade
finance, Rabobank was a bit like Utopia.
Here was an organization with a single-
minded focus matching mine. Early on, I
decided I didn't want to be a jack of all
trades and master of none. So I
specialized, bringing me to Rabobank.'
The reason Greenberg was laughing
becomes clear. 'The bank reminds me
sometimes of a sandbox,' he says. 'In one
corner kids are fighting, in another they
are working individually on creative
things, and in another they are busy
building structures together. And the
composition of each group changes
continually.' This has to be the cultural
anthropologist in him. 'Maybe my early
training means I can be non-Dutch and
still operate in a Dutch environment.'
Greenberg is not criticizing. However
rapid the internationalization process, RI
originated as a Dutch bank. 'I think the
way we position ourselves is a result of
our history. There is a lot of talk today
about customer focus in the outside
business environment. But in our case, 1
think it is more than a cliché. We arrived
at this stage unable to fight against the so-
called universal banks, like Deutsche or
Citigroup. If we try - as they do - to be
all things to all people, we won't win. As
a matter of strategie choice, and even
necessity, we have to focus. But sometimes
in the life of organizations, the hardest
decision is not to do certain things.'
Focus is a term Greenberg feels very
comfortable with. Throughout his career,
he has focused on training mechanisms
Peter Greenberg, focused on F&A
that would facilitate development into
what he sees as essentials for commercial
bankers - a thorough grounding in both
credit and marketing. 'If you don't have
both,' he says, 'you'll never be a truly
effective banker.' Although he has lived
outside of the US by choice - he pursued
part of his studies in Colombia and
worked in Latin America for lengthy
periods - he continues to admire the
generalist approach to higher education
there. 'In today's working environment,'
he says, 'young people don't always get
the chance to be generalists. Big mistake.
In terms of professional development, I
think it is crucial to get early exposure to
the major facets that, combined, ntake up
the profession. I don't buy in to the notion
of young bankers focusing exclusively on
one area. Too much is missed. You can
easily beconte focused too early on too
narrow an area with respect to
professional (and the rest) of life.'
Given Greenberg's own career path, he
does not appear to be speaking from
personal experience. His cultural
anthropology degree from New York
University, followed by a master's at
Columbia University, should have taken
him into academe. 'I understood quickly
that unless you're a genius, you'd end up
marooned on some academie island. We
wanted to travel.' He had met his
economist wife, Consuelo, at the Bogota
university and had persuaded her to
relocate to the US. 'She agreed to marry
me if 1 stopped smoking and ensured she
could return to school. 1 was offered a
job in banking during my last year of
university - for more money than a
couple of poor students had seen in ages.
I took it and she went to school. At least I
kept one part of my promise,' he says,
exhaling smoke ruefully. V
Education and training were and still
are exceptionally important to both
Greenbergs, a focus Peter has also
brought to his task as global F&A
business manager. 'When I joined
Rabobank,' he recalls, 'I had to manage
my own career. I don't think that is the
ideal solution for people coming up in the
organization. They should be surrounded
by mechanisms they can tap into for the
broad benefit of their career path
management. Specifically from the F&A
perspective, I would like to see that in
place for young people - not least because
it loops back to my own experience.' But
there is another reason why he has pushed
hard for the international relationship
managers' course now into its second étk
class. 'The more we bring together peopk^
from various disciplines, and by that I
mean product specialists, the more we
integrate the bank into a seamless whole.
That's basically what I'm after with the
course. It is nascent, and we're aware
there is room for improvement. We're
working on it because we believe this can
be one mechanism for that integration.
Without such integration, initiatives such
as our recently launched European F&A
marketing program are doorned to fail.'
It may seem Utopian, but Greenberg has
experienced Rabobank Utopia in the past,
so he's optimistic. 'I would like to think
that through customer focus, we have
been strong enough to rise to the chal-
lenge of realizing there are things we
shouldn't do and a few things we should
do with fixed focus. And to the extent
that this is not universally understood
within the bank, we still have a way to go
in advancing the customer focus strategy.'