'Performance is all about
talking heads
As Willem Cramer and his Sao Paulo team face one of the toughest crises to hit
the Latin American economy, we ask him what it takes to tackle the situation.
'Skill, experience, know-how and a huge amount of effort,' he says. 'Other
factors are responsibility and integrity, but there's also quite a lot of luck.'
i 6 What'sNewS Issue 2 February 1999
Make no mistake, our team in Brazil
is not relying on lady luck to help
manoeuvre them through this latest crisis.
Yet, Cramer insists luck certainly plays a
role in all business, including banking.
Raised in rural Holland as the only son of
a Calvinist minister, Cramer's parents
instilled many virtues in him, including
effort, integrity and responsibility, all of
which stood him in good stead for later
life. I.uck played very little part in it.
Neither did achievement: 'My parents
impressed upon my sister and I the notion
that trying hard was more important than
getting high grades.'
Now confronting a complex local
situation which has definite
consequences for the region as a
whole, and potentially the rest of
the world, he notes: 'What our
parents did expect was effort; real,
consistent effort. They believed
that was more important than
achievement.' It was a concept
that in no way interfered with
Cramer's progress through high
school and Leiden University,
where he studied international law
with a heavy focus on economics.
'Learning came quite easy and I
had a wonderful time at university
where I was active in fraternity
life. In fact, it was that very activity that
led me to Rabobank when I finished.' He
went for an interview with ABN, at that
time the more logical career option for
someone wanting an international career,
and found most of his classmates were
there too. 'I reckoned ABN would be too
much like staying at university.'
Cramer was looking for a challenge.
He had concentrated on economics at
university because he discovered that
international law was too vague. 'I found
I was too pragmatic for the kind of
abstractions we were dealing with. I'm a
hands-on kind of person and so the
switch to economics was logical. In
retrospect, opting for Rabobank was just
as logical.' In the mid-1980s, Rabobank
was just starting its push towards
internationalization, offering interesting
opportunities for an ambitious young
man like Cramer. He admits to his
ambition, but believes it has more to do
with his upbringing than anything else.
'I mentioned that my parents were strong
on effort, responsibility and being
straight, honest. My ambition is driven
by a need to do my best, rather than
ambition for its own sake.
He started at Rabobank in international
trade finance, working for Shafik Gabr:
Willem Cramer keeping on the right side ofcircumstance
'That was a real privilege because I was
able to work in a region and on a series of
products with someone who knew both
intimately. I spent four great years learn
ing the business. At the time, perceived
wisdom was that you needed two skills to
work in the international division - one
was international experience, the other
was indepth understanding of credit -
haven't things changed? Anyway, I
managed to convince senior management
that I should learn lending in New York.
That was another great experience.'
So far, Cramer's career had been full of
good experiences so he was quite
unprepared for what his next assignment
would teach him. 'I was still
comparatively young, but was desperate
to get management experience,' he says.
'After doing international trade finance
and corporate lending, I feit that a little
independence was just what 1 needed.'
He didn't quite get what he expected.
The job offered to him was manager at
of one of a cluster of offices making up
the German operation. 'Thinking about
it,' he says, 'I see it was too early in my
career to take on anything as complex as
our German operation as it was then -
in a state of flux. Basically, it was a great
learning curve, but I was the wrong
person in the wrong place at that time.'^
It was a blow. '1'd always breezed through
my career and, although I didn't recognize
it, I'd had a lot of luck. What Hamburg
taught me was that effort doesn't always
hack it. I worked my tail off there, as did
the whole team, but the situation
was so complex that it simply
wasn't enough. I've now become
convinced that circumstances are
a factor in performance. Which is
why I try not to overstretch
young people. Give them chal-
lenges, but without allowing them
to get out of their depth. It's a
delicate balance.'
He tries to bring a similar balance
to Sao Paulo. 'I was fortunate M
Teun de Boon was general
manager for my first three years;
he taught me that you have to
build strong teams around you,
especially in areas where your
own knowledge is less extensive.
For me, that's investment banking. In an
economy like this, you need local treasury
knowledge. It's not like food and
agribusiness, which is a truly global. In
Brazil, if you don't have treasury people
who know their stuff, it'11 kill you.'
Cramer and his team have no intention of
letting that happen. Through careful risk
management and portfolio monitoring,
they have tried to shape circumstances so
that they are well prepared for this and
any other Latin American crisis. 'And we
have the wealth of Victor den Hoedt's
Indonesia experience to help us,' he adds
Another thing that Cramer has learnt in
Brazil is that you can also make your own
luck - if you have the knowledge and
flexibility to back up the effort.
