Peter Engelberg, the sudden departure of Pierre Arens, your predecessor at the head of Bank Invik may appear as a surprise. How do you explain it?

 “Even if we all had a really good relationship with Pierre, I think we came to a point – after Bank Invik had been acquired by Scribona group, Swedish IT distributor – at which the bank had to take a new direction. Pierre had maybe some other ideas on what he wanted to do as managing director. Then one came to the decision to part ways and to do some of our own business in different ways.

On what, more specifically, did your points of view diverge?

“There were some divergences on the strategy that the bank should follow in the future. We have the mantra of doing a little more of what we are good at.

We are very good in some areas, which are corporate client services, wealth management, and cards and payments services. But we are not looking into financing very big projects in regions we do not cover, like Germany or the Middle East, for example, the competition there being very tough.

 

Which businesses will you now concentrate on more?

 “We will be more focused on doing what we are good at. That is for us an important thing. If you want to excel in business, where you are really good, you should keep doing more of what you know.

We are more focused on the Scandinavian (i.e. Swedish and Danish) markets, which we are already serving today. It is where we have a competitive edge and where we can really add value as an organisation. We want to stick to our three core businesses, and not to run into many different leagues.

 
What will now be your main priorities as managing director?

 “I think that one of our priorities is to try to gather everyone in the company and to share the views and values that we have. We are willing to empower the people in the organisation to take decisions and to be more creative.

We want to keep on focusing on the guiding principle that, in every business, there is always a client at the end who wants to buy a product or service from us. I think that is an important corporate culture to have.

 

How will you implement those management priorities concretely?

“Remaining more focused is certainly our key word in the bank; first, by building and keeping a more flat organisation within the bank.

By also empowering people in the bank and by encouraging them to be more active as well as by allowing that mistakes will be made. We also want to encourage them to take more decisions. It is a point that we want to change within the organisation.

We also want to push the corporate culture and the communication towards both the staff and the clients.

 

How would you describe the weaknesses and strengths of your organisation?

“I think that one of our main weakness is in getting in contact with the clients. That is a field we need to become better in, as well as improving our communication with the market and the customers, in order to be able to get in touch with the clients, to capture and nurture them. We have some idea on how we will proceed. But that might take some time.”