A clear mandate
to expand our
rural business
Guillermo Bilbao
Guillermo Bilbao:
As a member of the management teamfor International
Retail, Guillermo Bilbao will be responsible for
Rabobank's activities in South America. What are his
expectations of the new governing structure?
RI's governance structure
supports the business
"The new structure will allow us to bring our F&A knowledge to
bear on all the different markets in South America that Rl is in.
We now have a clear mandate to expand our rural business and
build further on our longstanding wholesale experience in this
region. I therefore see the new structure as a recognition of the
growth of our business."
sales efforts around our clients, getting closer to them so
that we can support them better. In this regard, also the
Account Executive role will be optimised. "It's great when we
can help a cliënt with Trade Commodity Finance for example,
but we will always need to ask ourselves whether the cliënt
might also benefit from advice from Corporate Finance,
or from a product offered by Structured Products."
Client intimacy has clear business benefits too. It provides
stable income growth relative to costs. Stable income and
cost consciousness are just two of the 5 key value drivers
that Rl will be employing to remain a balanced bank.
The other drivers are an efficiënt allocation of existing
and freed-up capital, optimising liquidity and better
management of cliënt and operational risks. "What it all
boils down to is that in a time of high volatility, it's all about
making the right - balanced - choices," says Sipko.
Sipko's Wholesale division will be led by a smaller, but
dedicated Wholesale management team. "A smaller
"In order to continue being successful we must keep our know
ledge in F&A available throughout the whole chain. It wouldn't
work if we were to compartmentalise ourselves in two different
silos. What I like about the new structure is that it allows us to
continue managing our business as a whole chain. It enables us
to identify opportunities better within the F&A sector, to manage
risks better, to position ourselves better, and to finance not just
the large guys but the little guys as well."
"An important part of this is for everybody to be committed to
the new strategy. There is nothing that breaks down silos more
than everybody having a common goal. Flow do we bring in our
experience in Australia or New Zealand to serve the Chilean farmer
better? We need to take away the limitations that have kept us
from really sharing the knowledge that we have across the globe.
The new governing structure will create a truly international effort.
It will open up structures and it will allow us to develop people
in a much broader way across different places in the organisation.
That is very exciting."
issue 21 O..OB-. THE WORD 1 1
