Helman Sitohang (Photos courtesy of Credit Suisse)

Credit Suisse Asia Pacific CEO Helman Sitohang believes in the power of learning new things to achieve career success.

Any successful CEO has “something” that drives them to achieve a high standard. Helman Sitohang, a top banking executive at Credit Suisse Asia Pacific, has a life motto that has played a crucial role in his career success.

Sitohang says that his motto — “There is nothing permanent but change” — which he came across during a previous job, has motivated him to always “keep learning and being adaptable to change, improvement, looking for better solutions and looking ahead when strategizing for ourselves [our workplace] and our environment”. This has worked for Sitohang over his 18-year career with the Singapore-based bank.

“The motto means that if we maintain the status quo and do not want to learn, or adapt, or change, or improve ourselves and our environment, then we will lag behind,” said the 50-year-old son of a mixed marriage between an Indonesia and a Czechoslovakian.

“[The motto] has helped me rise to my current position,” said the Credit Suisse Asia Pacific CEO.

Even though Sitohang’s educational background is in engineering, he has been able to pursue a career in finance, particularly the banking sector, due to his willingness to learn new things in every task that he needs to perform in the companies where he has worked.

Prior to his debut in the banking sector, Sitohang, who studied electrical engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology, did a stint as an engineer at Schlumberger (France-based oil and gas service company) from 1989 to 1991.

He says his “unplanned” and late-blooming interest in finance prompted him to read a lot of finance books and magazines and, encouraged by his friends, try finance for his next job. He got that job at Citibank Jakarta – the first non-engineering position he held.

Three years after working at Citibank, where he acquired basic banking skills, he joined Bankers Trust for three years prior to joining Credit Suisse in 1998, which was then called Credit Suisse First Boston.

Sitohang moved from Credit Suisse’s Jakarta office to the bank’s Singapore office in in 2002, where he was entrusted with various managerial positions before finally rising to the top of the ladder as CEO for Asia Pacific in 2014. This saw him take on additional responsibilities including private banking, wealth management and shared services in the region.

For Sitohang, previous job experience has given him highly valuable lessons that have contributed to his entire career journey.

He says working with Schlumberger, which required him to move from one place to another, at home and abroad, mostly in Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines, gave him the opportunity to gain basic knowledge of management and dealing professionally with clients. At that time, he also became familiar with working long hours and enhanced his ability to adapt.

Well-rounded personality

Meanwhile, his experience with Citibank from 1991 to 1994 taught him basic banking, which in turn fostered his interest in finance thanks to the good training he received.

Sitohang is not only the first Indonesian and the first Asian to be appointed CEO of Credit Suisse for Asia Pacific, but also the first to join the executive board of Credit Suisse Group AG and Credit Suisse AG.

Under his leadership, Credit Suisse recorded incredible profit and growth in 2015, which earned Sitohang Finance Asia’s Outstanding Achievement Award.

At present the bank employs 6,800 people across Asia, including in India, Australia, Japan, Korea, China and Southeast Asia, with its management team also highly diverse in terms of nationality.

When it comes to managing multinational business teams, Sitohang says that is important for a corporate leader to have a well-rounded personality, enabling them to interact with people from different countries given that each team member will have their own character traits.

A leader should allow people from different countries and backgrounds to work in a team even though individually, they may have their own skills, he said.

“My role as a manager includes helping my team progress and grow individually and collectively in a team,” he said.

“Sometimes I communicate via telephone or hold a video conference. Sometimes I go to them. It is important to keep a team in harmony,” said the bank executive.

A range of skills is needed, Sitohang believes, to manage people from different countries for the bank to achieve growth. That range of skills, he said, was an integrated package of hard work, trust in your team and your clients, interaction skills and the ability to seize an opportunity.

 “It is also crucial to have the ability to set out a strategy and execute it, and bring in results,” he advised.

 Given the pluralistic makeup of his team, Sitohang adopts a down-to-earth approach when it comes to leadership style through an established habit of checking facts verses reality in the field because in this way, he says he “can respond to issues in the right manner”.

“I do not only receive reports from the upper level, but I go down to check the facts. But sometimes I also need to be able to see things from above, and refer to our set strategy, or take a broader helicopter view. So, it’s important for a leader to have all these skills,” he said.

Down-to-earth leadership has benefitted him, especially in dealing with conflict, which he says requires a balanced and pragmatic solution. In dealing with conflict, looking at a person’s background should be avoided because “the important thing is an objective, balanced, practical and pragmatic approach”, he said.

 Online strategy

Asked for his insights into the new economy dominated by online technology, which will inevitably have an influence on all business sectors across the world, he said that disruptive technology posed a challenge and provided opportunities at the same time.

At Credit Suisse, a breakthrough strategy has been set up to seize the opportunity, one aim of which is to seek a capital market.

A case in point was a transaction made by alibaba.com. The company launched an initial public offering (IPO) in which Credit Suisse were a lead underwriter. “In China, we are a leading investment bank, taking on many projects related to the new economy,” said Sitohang.

To anticipate the impact of disruptive technology on finance business, the bank has set up a team whose major task is to analyze the impact on its business model. “In this regard, I think, any business, whether small or big, has an online strategy in order not to be left behind.”

For Sitohang, frequent business trips are not just business-as-usual, but rather a medium for meeting different entrepreneurs who form an interesting source of inspiration.

He said that every time met entrepreneurs, he was always excited about the interesting ideas they presented.

An example of this was when he met Tony Fernandes, CEO of Air Asia. “He came up with the concept of a budget airline, which in those days was not available, and he also revolutionized budget airlines, allowing more people to travel,” he said.

“We also have a client in China, a car rental business, which has become a major player there. Ideas and new business opportunities can always be developed. So every time I meet a client, there is always a new business because our clients are highly adaptable to change and new developments. And we can help them find new ideas. This is why adaptability to change and development is crucial,” he concluded.  (Sudibyo M. Wiradji)

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Birth

       Prague, October 22, 1965

career highlights

• Credit Suisse, CEO for Asia Pacific (2014 to present)
• Credit Suisse, head of investment banking for Asia Pacific (2012)
• Credit Suisse, CEO for Southeast Asia (2010)
• Schlumberger, engineer (1989-1991)

Education

      Bachelor of Science (Eng.) from Bandung Institute of Technology

AT EASE

Family gatherings
I try to gather and meet with my family every weekend. That’s important. I drive my daughter to school, at which time I can have a chat and interact with her to maintain life balance. On weekends when we gather and meet, I always ask everyone to switch off their mobile phones.

Workout time
I play tennis, run, go to the gym and ride a bike. In Singapore there are many bike lanes and the good thing about riding a bike is you can see scenery and social life. [The bike lane] covers a long distance and goes all the way to a rimland where cars are not allowed. I cycle whenever there is an opportunity during the week, for between two and three hours.

Balance of life
I always try my best. If we cannot achieve 100 percent, then we try to improve and make it better. We always need to move on. Try never to seek hostility but rather, find an elegant solution. Then, on the weekend, I spend my personal time with my family. The most important things are balance of life and feeling happy with what we are doing.

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