CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach: (a.k.a. “Triple E”) on banking, Wall Street, M&A, successful Post Merger Integration, the GFC, mobility and leveraging young talent.
Erich is an assertive and result-oriented leader. He has a history of building high performance management teams combined with in-depth understanding of the Financial Services, IT Services and Automotive industries. He has held positions with global leadership responsibility for over 8,000 employees spanning 40+ countries.
In our conversation we discuss Erich's journey from bank apprentice to Global Head of Financial Services and then Aftersales for BMW. We talk about his time on Wall Street, what it was like heading up BMW's treasury function during the Global Financial Crisis and the successful integration of ING Car Leasing and Alphabet. Erich shares his early leadership experiences during his period of military service and his later strategy to develop a global culture by leveraging young talent.
I know Erich as a driven and innovative leader with a focus on growing people and developing positive and progressive organisational culture. It is my pleasure to share his career story in this episode.
If you enjoy listening to my guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app.
You can contact Erich at: erichebner@t-online.de
The Business Model Canvas that Erich refers to can be downloaded here.
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This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by Aquilae.
Aquilae's mission is to enable Fulfilling Performance in the mobility industry, internationally. Adopting our Fulfilling Performance paradigm helps you identify what steps you need to take to enable Fulfilling Performance for yourself, your team and your business. Contact cvm@aquilae.co.uk for a no obligation conversation about your situation.
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Episode recorded on 26 September 2022
Someone has to decide on which summit you want to walk or hike, so someone has to have an idea of where to go.
Andy:Welcome to Career-view Mirror the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host, Andy Follows Erich Ebner von Eschenbach listeners. Erich is an assertive and result oriented leader. He has a history of building high performance management teams combined. With in depth understanding of the financial services, IT services and automotive industries he has held positions with global leadership responsibility for over 8000 employees spanning 40 plus countries. In our conversation, we discuss Eric's journey from bank apprentice to Global Head of Financial Services, and then Global Head of After Sales for BMW. We talk about his time on Wall Street, what it was like heading up BMWs Treasury function during the global financial crisis and the successful integration of ING Car Leasing and Alphabet. Erich shares his early leadership experiences during his period of military service and his latest strategy to develop a global culture by leveraging young talent. I know Erich as a driven and innovative leader with a focus on growing people and developing positive and progressive organisational culture. It's my pleasure to share his career story in this episode. If you enjoy listening to my guests career stories, please follow Career-view Mirror in your podcast app.
Aquilae Academy:This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by the Aquilae Academy. At the Academy we turn individual development into a team sport. We bring together small groups of leaders from non competing organisations to form their very own academy team. We build strong connection between team members and create a great environment for sharing and learning. We introduce the team to content that can help them tackle their current challenges. And we hold them accountable to take the actions that they decide are their priorities. We say we hold our team members feet to the fire of their best intentions. We do this internationally with teams across the world. If you'd like to learn more about the academy, go to www.aquilae.co.uk.
Andy:Hello, Erich, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Welcome, Andy. I'm sitting in Munich, Bavaria, hometown of Oktoberfest, which is actually running right now for another seven days. It's Germany, basically.
Andy:Well, thank you very much for joining us. And that question was very much for our listeners, because I can recognise from your background where you are in your lovely home in Schwabing. So I am grateful for you. I'm so grateful for you joining me to have this conversation, especially because it is October fest, and you're headed there after this conversation. So I've promised not to not to keep you too long. I wish I could be there as well and enjoy some of that. But thank you very much for for joining me. So you're in Munich. Now, where did your journey started? Where were you born? And where did you grow up?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I was born in Munich. I grew up in Munich. So I spent a significant part of my life in Munich, and a couple of years in New York. So those are my two, let's say homes.
Andy:So okay, I look forward to hearing about the New York spell in a little while. So I'm always curious to know what sort of childhood my guests have had, what sort of roles did they have visibility of what did their parents do? And what was the family dynamic with brothers and sisters? So would you mind sharing a little bit about that?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:So I have a younger brother and younger sister, my sister's nine years younger me my brother's two years younger. Well I grew up in a typical German after war, middle class family. My family basically lost everything in the war. So my family had to really build up their life from from scratch. My mother comes from Erfort, which after the war was basically occupied by the Russians. So it was just a so called stadia. Later on she fled from this area into Western Germany, and then had to start a complete new life in Western Germany. My father worked at the Ministry of Economics in Bavaria till he retired.
Andy:Okay, so certainly numbers and economics were a feature of your childhood then
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:To be honest, my main focus was sports. I really enjoyed sports, I played a lot of soccer. I did love skiing. And at the end of the day, my dream job after high school, or finishing my IB was sport teacher, which particular my father didn't found a very prospective or in a very good job. So after I spent two years in the Army, he got me into a banking apprenticeship programme at the Munich bank here.
Andy:Okay, can we go back just a little bit, Eric. So he was he was a was he a government he was involved in government? was he so quite a senior role. Yeah. And I'm thinking, is it fair to say you have quite an aristocratic name. So Erich Ebner von Eschenbach, sounds quite aristocratic,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:aristocratic, and it has also, let's say famous part to it. So there is a writer, Marie Ebner von Eschenbach and she wrote a couple of books. She's quite famous in Austria. And our family in the 15th 16th century, split up in a Catholic and Protestant family and so Marie Ebner von Eschenbach was, was the last how do you say that the last living person of the Catholic arm of our family, right, there's a there's a book called , and that's mandatory for any primary school kids in Austria. Therefore, a lot of people recognise me.
Andy:Ah, okay. Well, thanks for enlightening me about that. And whilst having the aristocratic name you had then a middle class upbringing, though so the family had lost everything during the war. So it sounds like your father had a good job, but you weren't growing up in castles or
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:no, nothing compared to what you see in Great Britain with the family. I still nicely behave. And I'm not my parents are not celebrated in all these nice magazines. We had a townhouse, a small townhouse where we grew up. Today, it was in Munich. But more than 30 years ago, it was outside basically outside the verge of the city of Munich, somewhere between the old airport and Munich. Today, it's a new exhibition area. And I had to travel quite long to the city. And I saved the money for my miniature rail trains.
Andy:So that was something you were interested in as a as a youngster.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah with my father.
Andy:So going forward, then to you, your ideal job would have been to be a sports teacher. That was your your passion, if you like, but that was not your father, obviously, was strongly influential in in the direction that he wanted you to take. And do you think that was influenced at all by the background, the family had this sort of wanting to really get you into a position where you would have financial security,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I strongly believe that it was really based on the experience of my parents after the war. And at that time, there was a strong belief, if you have a banking job, you are financially, on the safe side, it was a growing industry, and everybody felt safe. My father at that time basically told me that anyone who finishes an apprenticeship and gets a banking job has a lifetime job.
Andy:Yeah. We'll talk later in this conversation about what how you've guided your children. Yeah. And your thoughts on on that. I'll be looking forward to that. So you were with his support with his, with his very strong encouragement, let's say helped into into the banking world, before we leave school though, what sort of you liked your sport, and you do mountain biking and skiing and you've stayed incredibly active throughout. And there's also perhaps you're quite famous for that and appreciated for that by your friends, for guiding them on ski tours and mountain biking tours. So you've stayed true to your passion for for sport. You obviously given the career that you've managed to have you obviously very capable to handle the academic side of banking and finance and corporate life since So, as you were leaving school, what did it mean going this direction? Where what were your first steps after school?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, the first step after the school was I had no clue what to do, and therefore I got went to the army. And at that time, you could extend your mandatory time by six or eight or nine months to two years, and then you got a reasonable pay. And that gave me financial independence. So it was the first time being at the army to be independent from financially independent from the parents, which was the goal. And afterwards, I just had no clue and no idea honestly what to do. I didn't want to fight with my father about this sport, teacher career path. And therefore, I took on the challenge of having a banking apprenticeship. And then I was lucky because they sent me to Garmisch Partenkirchen. So I spent two years in a bank. And at lunch, we went out. At that time, there were no mountain bikes, but we went out skiing between noon and two. So we had dresses at the, at the bank branch to go skiing for two hours.
Andy:Fantastic. I don't know many people who have had that experience. So what age were you when you did military service? What age did you get to go to the army?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Nineteen? I think I was 19 or 20
Andy:Yeah, and he did two years there because that way, you got a little bit more money for doing it. And that gave you independence from the family. And then you've got an apprenticeship, a banking apprenticeship, after that, based in Garmisch. So you could go skiing, or meant that you could go skiing in the Alps, actually,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:the army had a quite a significant influence to me, because in a very short time period, I was in an engineering troup and they work very closely with US forces on some nuclear ammunition. And they look for someone who can lead a German team of 30 people 30 soldiers, and interact with the Americans. And I could speak English quite well. So I was given the responsibility for this 30 People, much, much earlier than anyone well not anyone, but many people in the army. So I learned leading people under really, let's say, tough circumstances and all this training at the Army.
Andy:I was going to ask you, when you got your first leadership experience, just from my own experience of working with you, you were always by that time very people focused and very interested in developing people and creating opportunities for people. So this is interesting that it was relatively early that you were and under quite difficult circumstances where you were first given responsibility for other people.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:And and in the interesting part was, and I realised that later on not, in this two year service, the different military styles of the US Army and the German army.
Andy:Oh, please tell me about that. What
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I think the doctrine at that time, the US doctrine is very much these are professionals. So they you don't have mandatory military service in the US, or you didn't have it at that time. So it was a clear order driven management style. So if someone said, Okay, go left, and everybody turned left. In the German army I think based on the history, it was you were trained to be allowed to question a decision of your superior. So you if someone said, Okay, you go left, and you had serious concerns that this is right or wrong. You were allowed to question the order
Andy:that contradicts everything I've ever thought or heard about what you need to do. If you're in the military.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:It rarely happens. But you know, that's how we were trained, because they wanted to make sure. And we had a lot of political classes. They wanted to make sure that in a German army, there's never ever a single person that dominating the part of the army again, for example, you don't don't put your odds on a person you to do on the country. Yeah. But anyway, so the interesting part is you have a lot of rules and regulation, which strongly supports you as a as a left tenant or as a leader in the army. But what do you what I very quickly realise this, that this has no value at all, if you in a fighting environment. So we trained really hard with the US Army. And at that time, we had, we still had probably the peak of the Cold War. So we were at the border to East Europe, we dealt with nuclear weapons, all kind of nuclear weapons and it was interesting that in these trainings that you could could convince soldiers to do things, not with authority you were given, but the way you treated them. And that really kind of made the biggest difference. And the best example is we trained in the mountains, basically at the border of the closest alzberg. And there's an area which is it's really cold. This is one of the coldest spots in Germany, and we train them for a couple of days. And I was not allowed, or we were trained also to use food and drinks, they typically used to support an army, which are not tasteful. So whenever I had the opportunity, and we passed a bakery, where we had an opportunity to pass a supermarket, I bought beer and pretzels and stuff. And that made the biggest difference. Yeah, whenever they did a good job, I allowed them to use the army truck to stop at the back end of a bakery and be bought the whole shop empty. Right. And this is a picture I have always in mind. You can't force people to do something, which, if you cannot really motivate them, and I think particular in let's say, in a war, I never experienced the war, fortunately. But if you train it, you realise it, people go over the edge, and having them trust you and have them motivated and appreciated is the only way to keep them moving in your direction. Yeah, but moving your direction supporting.
Andy:So hierarchy alone, the authority of position is not sufficient to really motivate people there needs to come from something else. Did that come naturally to you at that time Erich, or did you learn it from watching someone else? Or had you had a coach when you were younger who treated a team like that? Or where did you get given they were older than you as well? Yeah.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:They were older, and some of them in the time in prison. So they were people who were in the age between 14 and 18, had had committed minor crimes, but they were always in this were always enter to this particular area of the military. Actually, I learned it just by doing I had no no one to tell me. Because the typical school, there are schools where you learn how to lead a team in combat, they tell you different because they still diverse, a lot of senior people who, who experienced the Second World War, they were the vast majority were still influenced by what they experienced in the structure and the hierarchy of the German army in Second World War.
Andy:Yeah, so the ways they were used to were were different. Okay. Shall we move into the bank? Yes, then. And you said you didn't want to fall out with your father, you didn't want to argue with him about this, you went on this path. And from a lifestyle point of view, the job sounded good going skiing in the afternoons. Doesn't sound too bad at all. And did you embrace the job itself? Did you enjoy doing the work.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:to be honest, at the end, it was really a challenge because I didn't understand the dialect of the local people in Garmisch.
Andy:I'm laughing I have no idea what they might sound like
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:At that time, they spoke very they strong, their very own dialect. And so anyway, it was funny with the people. And I think at the end of the day, I enjoyed working with people and got into banking. And there were a lot of manual work to be done, which apprentice had to do. So we didn't have computers, we got all the bank account slips every day, and people were coming and got their information slip about their banking account, elderly people looked at a savings account. So the job has changed so dramatically that I think if you go into bank branch today, there's nothing left. What I did when I started my banking career,
Andy:a lot of my well a good number of my guests have done similar things, Erich, that they've ended up in senior roles in financial services, and they've started right at the bottom in the bank. And it just seems to be such a valuable thing to do to have that even though things might have changed now but to have that real understanding of, of what happens, what the processes are with the customers and and so on.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I think the key is, and I think this is true for any industry is that you value the people and you value what they do in a different way if you have done it. Yeah, so and probably we touched on it later but I think it fits quite nicely. I worked on the assembly line with BMW and working in a nine hour shift Yeah, my whole back my whole body was sore yeah. And I felt really fit so you know I I did sport for my life. So I'd say it's not not a challenge. But I really got a complete different appreciation level of appreciation. When I spent some time at the assembly line here at the plant in Munich, a nine hour shift is a long day. I can tell you, yeah,
Andy:I'm sure it is in those circumstances. And what then did you take? So you'd taking a lot away from that first role, understanding the bass operations in the bank, understanding the the roles that there are the customers. So how long was that placement for and how did you progress during that? Well, there
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:is a even today there's a two year programme. That's basically the dual education system here in Germany. Yeah, so
Andy:that's really so good. Yeah. Yes. So good. So
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:you go to school, and you learn all sorts of, you know, all the fundamentals directly from fundamentals of banking. And yeah, my, my progression was another weird step. I learned in school all about capital markets, and options and this type of stuff. And that was really fascinating to me. So I really liked the idea of capital markets. And I really liked the idea of call and of options and derivatives, because I didn't have a lot of money. And I thought, okay, I can play a little bit of on capital market with doing them bets and auction. And I started it. And luckily, I was quite successful and got in touch with some traders in Munich, and build a kind of an informal communication line with them at the Munich Stock Exchange. At that time, Munich had its own stock exchange. And then the HR department asked me what I want to do after the making apprenticeship. And I said, Yeah, I want to be a trader. And then there was this guy. And he, he explained, it explained to me that it will take six years or seven years, till I'm on the trading floor, all the different programmes or the different departments. And so I was super frustrated. And I came back to the branch and had a discussion with the colleagues. And then I told one of the colleagues, I'm calling the responsible board member and asked him whether it is okay. And every branch saying you cannot call a board member, because at that time, I think it was even more crazy to call have this idea, than these days, but I called him and he was not available. And the Secretary was super nice. And most likely My name helped me. I think she thought I'm a kind of senior person. And so she asked me whether she can transmit to a senior senior executive who is responsible for trading. And I talked to him and a half an hour about capital markets, about options, that direction, about the saving rate and Garmisch, that it's coming down that people more and more invest in shares. And after 30 minutes, he asked me, What is the purpose of your call? Then I said, Well, I'm I'm finishing my apprenticeship. And the HR department told me it takes six years to get there to be a trader. And then this guy said, Mr. Lehman, it's one of these moments you always remember. He said, it will take a couple of days.
Andy:I am the I just loving this because here's early evidence of some of the behaviour that I'm familiar with seeing this is not accepting, being told and being assertive and pushing. So you jumped six years, you skipped six years of the formal process.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah. So I started as a trader, and then after a couple of months, or a year or so, there was once a board member asked me whether I wanted to continue as a trader, but but he recommended to me that I should go and study economics in parallel. So the deal was, I basically worked in vacation time of the university as kind of a replacement of some traders who went on vacation or on their personal vacation. Right. And that had brought me the first time to New York, actually.
Andy:So we only mentioned which company that has
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:today's hyperfine spring, at that time, it was called barbarian finance bank.
Andy:And when you did your apprenticeship just to clear this up for my own benefit, Erich, so when you did your apprenticeship, you were studying and working at the same time this combined,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I finished their apprenticeship. Okay. Then moved to Munich on the trading floor. Right. Was trader. Okay, so full time trader? Yes. And then I started kind of this to education. Yeah. So yeah, it was basically helping the company or the bank, in times where some of the traders went on vacation, if this matched my university schedule, I did this.
Andy:Yeah, I've heard similar from other German guests. And it just seems an ideal system that you get to continue your education at the same time as being in the workplace and really having practical experience and growing that side of you, as well. So you were doing that in vacation, so supporting where some traders had gone on vacation. And what happened then when you got to the end of that period,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:but then basically, I switch the side. So after I am graduated, I started a job in investment banking. But just as one step back in 98, I worked on Wall Street. So that brought me to Wall Street in a small investment bank, which was associated to finance bank, they look for someone to support some selling ADRs to the US market.
Andy:Okay, what ADRs
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:ADRs are certified as a certification programme for international stocks who are not officially listed at the New york Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ at that time
Andy:Right? And what's this really, you were going in the direction you wanted to go? Was getting to Wall Street a big ambition for you at that point?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, it you know, being in Munich, getting the opportunity was a big ambition. Having lived there, I had a different opinion on that. Okay, I didn't earn a lot of money $450 a month, which basically, I spent for a bed in a closet in a shared apartment. Right? I was heavily invited by all these traders. But I think the first time I realised, you know, living in New York is super expensive. And if you don't earn this money, it can be really a drag on you.
Andy:Okay, so what had been an exciting aspiration, looking at it from Munich, the reality was a little bit different.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, you know, exactly, it was a comparison between kindergarten and Champions League.
Andy:Okay. What did you learn apart from that, that New York's expensive and if you're going to be there, you want to be earning significant sums. What did you learn from that period?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, it obviously was a crazy time. And I learned that you have to be super careful not to be eaten up by Wall Street, or any job you know because I very quickly realised, if you work the whole day, if you go out every night, if you spent the weekend with some of these people, you give up your life in the hands of this Wall Street Community, and that can be can be dangerous.
Andy:I'm comparing it to perhaps the lifestyle when you're in Garmisch. So much healthier, maybe even closer to your heart sort of lifestyle, then then the Wall Street one. I'm sure we'll come back to, you know, your experience with the capital markets. Your knowledge of investment banking served you later on very well in later roles. So we'll come back to that. But you would have been what sort of age late 20s? When you
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:It was 1988? I was 26?
Andy:Yeah, so mid 20's. Wow, that's quite an impressionable age still to be in that environment. But you were able to go there just on your by yourself. So no family and children in tow at that point. How long did you spend there?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:It was a half a year, nearly a half year.
Andy:Right? And then where did you come back to?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Then come back to Munich and finish my AC end of the year to go to graduate?
Andy:Right. Yeah, interesting exposure. Then did you stay with that bank, once you graduate
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:investment banking opportunities. So I switched aside from trading to investment banking, I did a lot of project finance. You will remember at that time, the biggest project finance project was the tunnel between France and Great Britain. So I was involved in this project and Disney World in Paris. And then they it started to have a lot of projects due to the reunification of East and West Germany, so that the whole power plant system was funded by projects, well a lot of them. So in East Germany, they still burnt coal, without any filtration. So there were areas where it snowed black, basically, and didn't have enough funding. They structured some minimum pricing for electricity so that we could basically structure a project where private persons invested in some equity and you got funding from banks. That's what I did. I did a lot of m&a, leveraged finance, and that basically then brought me 1996 Back to New York again.
Andy:Okay, so did you prefer the investment banking to the trading side? Was that? Is that a logical progression to go from trading to investment banking? Or was it a decision you chose about the style of work?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah, I think after, after having spent a significant part of my time at the University, and in trading, I found it interesting to be on the other side. So at that time, equity market was not that dominant. So it was more the bond market, which dominated the investment banking activities. And they asked me that, whether I want to join them. And it was, I was lucky because I was the only one who had trading experience and had an informal network in the trading floor. So that really helps to structure some of the transactions. And but that was pure luck. There was no big strategy behind it.
Andy:Right. Very interesting. As always, the things we pick up along the way, the experience we have the network that we have, how that can affect our attractiveness for a certain role, our suitability for a role. So how did you feel about getting back to New York, the second time,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:was super excited. I was at that time married, Laura was two years old. And my wife, Sabina, and I thought this is a fantastic opportunity. So yeah, we I was asked on a Monday and time till Friday, and then we decided to hop on a plane on Saturday and do not no house hunting but you know,
Andy:yeah, like a look and see?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:And then we decided to do it.
Andy:Right. So this time with Sabine and Laura, with you, and you had a much better idea now going into this what it was going to be like, this wasn't something you just imagined from Munich, you'd already been there you'd experienced it, and what are the circumstances of the job that you are going to be doing, I presume you're going to be on a little bit more money this time, and reckon you could enjoy it a bit more.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Definitely was a little bit more money, but I totally underestimated the cost of living. You know, having lived in initially at an apartment it was a bed and a colleague owned. And now kind of with family, we really learned that the hard lesson because Sabine and I said, okay? If we go to New York we want to live in New York, well Manhattan and not in the suburbs. And we went to a real estate agent. And we looked at some apartments, and he showed us in the Upper West Side, he showed us an apartment on the second or third floor, which we could have afforded or we could have had afforded. And then one on the 28, or 30 floor which the rental costs were more than my monthly income. Right? Yeah, but on the third floor you know, you couldn't live you know when a fire truck pass the apartment. You thought, Okay, this isn't going to work with kids.
Andy:Okay. So how was the experience, then, when you got out there
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:was a super fascinating experience. I, I jumped into the ice cold water. We built the corporate finance, well we structured the corporate finance department that time, we very much focused on leveraged finance, junk bonds and these type of activities. We did some LBO leverage as an ABS structure. Anyway, so we, we did a lot of, let's say, we focus very strongly on the core competence of the bank lending money. But I got involved in all these, with all just great rating agencies, Moody's, s&p, the whole market of syndicated loans. It was great experience. And then quickly, shortly after we arrived in my family arrived in New York, Philip was born. So we had a, you know, kind of different family life now with two kids, as you know, and there are some activities and working in Manhattan living in the suburbs. There was a were fascinating four years, we spent there
Andy:Four years. Right. And we you do you ever have any thoughts about the sports teacher thing? Or were you fully engaged in pursuing this career now,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:at that time was I was fully engaged? Yeah. Before I forget, you know, then I got my nickname in New York at that time.
Andy:Tell us about that
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:because it was standing in front of my team and a couple of lets say 100 to 150 people, and then a young guy got up and said, Okay, Erich, we're not going to spell your name. And then he said, your your EEE. And the phrase was then that you know, that's the lowest rating of HVB hyperfine bank.
Andy:EEE rating,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:because the rating stops at D which is default. I believe that I still meet people in Manhattan who remember that.
Andy:That's good. And that makes me think you had a big team by then. And you started out your leadership experience with, with the military colleagues, some of whom had spent time in prison. And now you are dealing with this different sort of people in New York, did you notice any difference? Or is there more more more similarity than difference between leading those teams?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:On a different level, there's a lot of similarity. Because they looked at me as Okay, now comes the kindergarten boy from Munich who wants to tell us something about capital market, or corporate finance. And then you realise it's, it is a mixture of strong vision, the competence and leadership skills to get these people working for you. None of these bankers had to work for me, they could have found another job in another bank, because these were the times were all these all banks basically do their part, or their departments and capital market, and corporate finance in New York when US Chinese, the Japanese, particularly Japanese, they build huge departments at that time.
Andy:So in some ways, we've got a similar thing going on at the moment, not necessarily in banking, specifically, but lots of organisations are finding it really difficult to hire and retain people at the moment. So you just mentioned really interesting to me point there about vision. So just say a little bit more about how you do that, and how you learned to do that if you did, or when it struck you that I really need to paint a clear picture for people or create a vision first.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I've never been trained and told, but I realised that and I think this comes from, from my sporting activities, that someone has to decide on which summit you want to walk, or hike, or if you do, particularly if you do mountain biking which track you're using, yeah, so someone has to make has to has an idea where to go. And that somehow naturally progressed to that i thought about, okay, I have a broken corporate finance department, which lost a lot of money. I had a boss, which challenged me, we're still friends, but he you know, he needed also some quick success. And that somehow developed, this process was an unstructured process for me to develop an idea where to go. Today, I think most people realise that you need this vision. And you have this famous 100 days, and you try to understand, even if you have a five team is five person, you're not getting them behind you, if you if you don't have an idea where to go, and what what to do.
Andy:And I love that expression, someone needs to have an idea where to go. It's really simplifies what it's all about.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah. And I think if you are in the mountains, it has this really helps. If you for example, if if the weather changes, and there is a thunderstorm coming, you realise that a lot of people are starting to be confused what to do. So and you don't have a lot of time, and it can be life threatening. So you have to make a decision. And you have to stick to it. You don't have time to revise it. Yeah. You know, kind of tried to think what really helped me I think this is the time was a military experience. When we do all kinds of activities. It's three o'clock in the night. And these people were trained to put ammunition mines where you told them and when you were when you were asked to move then you had to develop a plan.
Andy:So when you had this failing, you're put in charge of this failing corporate finance function. What did you decide was where you wanted to go? What did you decide was the path to take?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I had a lot of discussion with the teams to learn what they feel went wrong and why they are sitting in this uncomfortable position, not making money and you could realise that come to the competitive landscape at that time. And I think even today makes certain parts of investment banking for European bank uncompetitive way or are you uncompetitive, and m&a is is a key part of it. You don't have the depth of people and structure and recognition that you can play an active role on m&a. But everybody in Munich thought okay, US is such a big m&a market. So let's grow m&a. But the key competence of the bank even today is Long Term Lending. So this funding side of the The bank, the bank can provide funds up to 30 years, because they issue 30 year bonds. And all US banks didn't provide this long maturities and for the certain leveraged finance transaction, and certain project finance and junk bond transactions, it was very interesting to have a bank supporting a more long term funding structure. And, yeah, I thought this is this is something that we have a competitive edge. And that really helped us in that first 18 months to turn around and make a lot of money because all the big banks, they all over in short term funding activities, not not more than five years, seven, eight years was already seen as critical, and they couldn't get any quotes from their treasurer for eight year loan.
Andy:No. So you found you identified what it was where your strength was, rather than competing in the area where you didn't have the depth of experience or the people. Let's let's go and do what we're good at. And which they don't have. Yeah, here. There's so much I'd like to talk about Eric on today, you know, investment banking now, and what's happening with in the automotive space, or mobility space, so let's keep, keep moving forward. There's also some of the things that happened later in your career that you've told me fascinating stories about before. So were there other key moments from that second phase in New York? Or shall we move
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, you know, I think for the on? audience, you know, I'm always asked, Why did you then change? Now, because I was I was promoted, I was, let's say, seen as a great talent. And it was all the time, the feedback in my, let's say, annual review, discussion with some of the board members. And I thought, Okay, I'm on a good track, to do the next step in the bank. And so I didn't spend a lot of time flying to Munich. So I basically, I wouldn't say ignore, but under invested in my network in Munich, and I had a colleague, which was a nice guy. And he did kind of this relationship banking for German companies. And he flew to Munich every second week, sitting in Munich for two days, having some coffee with all these guys there. And I'm saying, Okay, what, okay, this is not what I think is necessary. But when a very senior position came up, he got this position. And then they call the responsible board member, and said, Hey, you told me that I'm number one on your list if this position comes available, and then this guy, and we had a very good relationship, I said, Eric, I forgot about you. That was a killing moment of, to me feeling appreciated in this bank. And so I tell everyone, if you go abroad, you know, investing in your network, no matter how people view, it, is utmost important. Because these decisions will not happen, like the HR department are always claiming that there's a structured process, and they discuss for hours. If this, you know, guys have an immediate need, they have some names in mind, and then they decide. And if you if you're not lucky that they recognise you, they make a decision, which they might regret later on. But this, they don't admit. And so this kind of was the moment where I feel I felt really kind of, to say really bad about the bank and the management.
Andy:How do you feel about that? Now?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:On the one side, I'm still surprised that it happened with this person on the other side, and I'm super grateful, because most likely, I wouldn't have done the rest of my professional journey if this wouldn't have happened.
Andy:Okay, I'm so glad you shared that story. And I coach people, and so often meet people who work really hard at what they think what genuinely are the most important things for the business that they're working for. And to try and persuade them to do the networking bit that you're describing can be difficult, because they're convinced it shouldn't be like that. It's not it's not fair. That's not That's not right. That's not proper. That's not how things should work. But it is how things work. And I'm glad you shared that example. So that was the end of your relationship. You lost sort of a little bit of trust with the organisation. Was that straightforward. You decided, Okay, I'm gonna look for something else.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:No, I was deeply frustrated. Of course. I had a couple of red bottles have red wine, not only beer, and then I did my job, you know, I overcame it. But then came this opportunity of joining a startup company in Munich as a CFO was a was a clear focus to do an IPO, as well as end of 2000. And as a family, we had this discussion whether we stay longer in the US, because was already four years. And so we decided, why not going back to Germany, but we knew that if we don't go back to Germany, we probably will stay in the US, because then I would have looked for some opportunities in the US in a US Bank, and there were opportunities. But I think we felt also with the kids, that it's the right time to move back to Germany. And I started a discussion with the bank, that type of positions were not really attractive, and then came to this interesting opportunity, which at the end of day, a gret, despite the fact that I felt a little bit uncomfortable when I met the management and some of the venture capital funds about the business model and the numbers. But that's a whole different story as well.
Andy:It's quite a big deal to leave the safe environment of a bank. Yeah. And to move into a startup. Were you thinking about it in those terms, especially when you got a younger family? As well, were you thinking about the risk in those terms when you did that.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Absolutely. And had a big discussion with my wife. And I remember, we had a meeting here in Munich, with the management and, and I called her and said, Something is wrong in this in this business model. But just let's do it. I just had so many trust in the bank that I thought, okay, somehow we are going to manage that. And somehow we are going to manage, well I'm going to manage being a CFO in the company and we get to IPO right. And I wouldn't have done it five years later. So I was 40 at that time. So I said, Okay, we have a certain amount of money. And we didn't we didn't have any debt because we didn't bought anything in US. So I knew that we have some financial flexibility to overcome some time with, let's say, a significant low salary, which actually then happened. So I joined the company. So I quit this well paid banking job, I joined the startup. And it took me nine months to get the numbers, right. And as some people know that the new economy market collapsed, so there were no idea about IPO, we had to restructure the company, companies still existing. But I had to basically, I had to deal with the fixed part of my income, which was a fraction of my income as a banker, and all the stock options and all these these fascinating stuff. were worthless, because it was a stock option. Unfortunately, you cannot buy milk in the supermarket.
Andy:No. So how long was that difficult period for
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:three years We had to do funding rounds. It was was a restucturing the company letting go 70% of people repositioning the company, having big discussion with the founders is tough particular, like today, when capital markets change dramatically, and valuations drop like a stone. And I think today is very comparable to what I experienced 2000 End of 2000 Till beginning of 2003.
Andy:Say a bit more about that. Then rather than moving on to it later. Let's do it now. Eric. So what what are your thoughts on what's going on? Now? So I mean, we've got, you know, lots of disruption happening in mobility, lots of new players coming into the industry, some valuations that are were eye watering, and and then some, some changes around that. What's your take on this? And is it how's it going to develop as long as they're going to last? What do you think is going to happen next, if that makes sense as a question?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Definitely, you know, if we look at the mobility market, the transformation is twofold, one that the powertrain itself is moving from a combustion engine to electric hydrogen, or in fuels. And I think the game where the decision has not been yet made, I think more and more people realise that pure electric is not going to work. They realise that pure hydrogen is too complex to store and to distribute. So the new CEO of VW Mr. Blume, he is very strongly promoting Efuels because that helps you to use the actual storage and distribution network of any petrol station. But the power train topic is a huge challenge for any car company, because for the last 50 years or even more 100 years, the combustion engine was the core element of providing individual mobility. And I think that segment disruption is that the last 40 5060 years, individual mobility in a car was extremely admired by any developed country. And now the generation of our kids and the society has changed. So individual mobility is not seen anymore as something to admire it is something which is,
Andy:it's not part of growing up, it's it's not a rite of passage in the same way that it was when we
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Exactly. We will see how things develop. I think we are at the very, very, very beginning of this trend, we will see how things play out whether it's the sharing industry, whether it's different concepts of providing mobility, but to me, the key concern is space. At the end of the day, the most successful mobility solution will recognise that a metropolitan area space is limited. So public transportation, or a mixture of public transportation and individual mobility, this, using more seats, in my view will be a strong trend, which we see in the future. So if you look at the roads, in London and Munich, in any Asian American city, typically they're sitting one or two people in the size of a car where you can sit eight people. And you see a lot of redirection of funds. So here in Germany, they redirect funds into the train system. That's the future.
Andy:Yeah, lots of things pointing in that in that good direction. So the IPO didn't happen.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:And then after three years, I was asked my headhunter, whether I want to join Softlab. Softlab was an IT consulting company owned by BMW. That's how I made my way to BMW. And the idea was to restructure the company, we did a couple of m&a transaction to position the company with a strong European footprint, and ultimately sold it to Entity Data. I spent three years with Softlab was involved in the sale of the company to Entity data, and then joined BMW as a Group Treasurer.
Andy:So leveraging all of the experience that you had built up to that point, even in the startup that that didn't go where you wanted it to. But this time it came right with Softlab was a successful sale. And had you you haven't mentioned cars really at all so far, Erich, so getting into BMW wasn't a lifelong ambition of yours. But obviously, growing up in Munich, you'd have struggled not to be aware of the business.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah, but no, it was never an ambition to go to BMW. Yeah. So I never had an ambition to go anywhere other than I think the biggest ambition I had was to move back from the US to Germany, and I grabbed the first opportunity with the startup. Yeah, I learned a lot with restructuring. And all we talked about on leadership skills, developing a vision, you know, really helped me to keep the startup overboarder. Yeah. And then I just had to look for another job. And I found it interesting at Softlab as an opportunity, not particular BMW as a shareholder.
Andy:No, looking at it as a as a project as a task to do an assignment. So then you found yourself after the sale, you found yourself in BMW, whereabouts in BMW. Did you start out
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:At Group Treasurer?
Andy:Right,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:so the financial crisis hit me six or nine months after I joined BMW as a Group Treasurer?
Andy:That must have been whatever you're comfortable to share about that experience? It's some time ago now. But what are you happy to tell us from those days?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I think it was a for the German car manufacturers. It was a, I don't have a better word, but life threatening experience. They all build these massive financial service activities. And therefore they had billions of funding needs completely under develop the Treasury activities, because the years before that were were worked all quite nicely. At that time, we had a CFO, which was significantly ill and unfortunately passed away at the end of the year after the Lehman crisis. So you were sitting there and I know all the Treasurers from VW or the Treasurers from VW and Daimler as well, because we had intensive talk. Senior management at the beginning, even the lets say the 9 12 months before Lehman happened, not recognising that there are things on the horizon, which might build up to a perfect storm. And, yeah, if you have, if you have not been on a trading floor, if you have not been involved in trading activities, you don't understand how capital markets work. And when Lehman happened, then, based on my experience, I thought, okay, you know, this is now really, really challenging for the company to stay liquid to find enough liquidity. And I always tell these do the story, what that meant at a time on Capitol market, you have to make decisions, and nobody's going to help you. Yeah, and it's within minutes, or let's say half a day, because you have windows of opportunity, and either you grab them or you lose them. And this is something a car manufacturer doesn't understand. Because the development cycle, a typical development cycle of a car is three years, and everything is checked 10 times. So before they decide on a windshield or on a design, it is reviewed and selected, checked with customers, blah, blah. If you want to offer a bond, there is a window of opportunity in capital market, and you either grab it or not. And that's within hours. So what happened in the days after Lehman filed for insolvency is that an analyst and banking analyst wrote an analyst report with the headline, can the German car companies fund their balance sheet, and the shares of the car companies dropped significantly. I think some of them double digit. So you get the call of the CEO. And he says what the fuck is going on. And you explained to him that investors are now seeing that there's the liability side of the bank is massive, which they have never looked at, because they always looked at car sales and marginally car business. And now they recognise and you can look this up on Reuters, Bloomberg, any public service, how many bonds are maturing before year end. And that was a significant billion amount with BMW, and even a higher amount for some of the competitors. So after a couple of days, some of the utilities companies entered the bond market. And I knew that once the back, the big impression of the senior management of BMW was, we talked to this analysts, we talked to investors, and we talk, my experience and capital market is talk doesn't help you have to successfully prove that you can do something. So I told my team, we're going to do a bond, no matter how crazy and all investors quote me and say that you know, Erich, you're going to fail. And whoever has done a bond offering knows the process. So it took us, they often required some time to find banks supporting the bond offering. And they didn't underwrote it, they just, were supporting it. And then the next morning, you have this, what is called whispering. So there are rumours on the capital market. You know, can firm this investment banks, that BMW's coming to the market with a bond. And as I spent quite a time, the days or the weeks before on the in the US with big pension funds and investment funds, to understand what they need, what kind of return they expect. And you also have to recognise that you need a 500 million bond, a successful let's say, you have to put a flat minimum 500 million to the market, because otherwise it's not interesting for the large funds and insurance companies. And the frame, the phrase they use is benchmark bond. So we started a bond offering and it didn't went well in the in the beginning. And I called some of the guys I met on the West Coast, and you can call them at three o'clock in the morning their time. And I said, Okay, what do you need, and we increase the pricing, and ultimately, some guy put down an order of 250 million, which brought us over 500 million. And we ended up the day, I think, somewhere between one and a half or 2 billion wonderful. And that completely changed the perception of BMW on capital markets. And it didn't I didn't ask any board member I didn't wrote any memo. I just did it. That was the big difference to one competitor, which I don't want to name now. And he called me and said You're lucky because I have to write a proposal and it takes two weeks till the board is deciding on and the window of opportunity you created by a security company successfully tapping capital market is open now but they don't understand that they have to act now. I want I want basically to act on your back and it took him three weeks to get approved for the bond. And well this company really, really struggled big, big times. But Mr. Radova, or the CEO at that time, he was very clear, he asked me what is happening when if the bond offering fails, and I told him, You have to call the Chancellor, the German Chancellor for support, which luckily didn't happen. Otherwise, we would talk about a different career after
Andy:the rest of this story would be somewhat different. I love that story. What I'm thinking, while you were telling me that story, or telling us that story, Eric, a few thoughts popped into my mind. One is this idea that, you know, we talked about number of my guests who started at the bottom of the bank, right at the grassroots level. And the experience that you had, as a trader, on the trading floor, you said, unless you have done that you don't understand how the capital markets work. So there you were, you found yourself in the role of Group Treasury at BMW, but with a traders experience, you also use the line in this conversation, someone needs to know where to go. And if the snow is coming down, if the if the, if the snow is coming down on the mountain, or visibility is coming down, you don't have a big window to decide what to do or where to go. And so what you would have experienced in your military career is not dissimilar to that level of threat. You said it was an existential threat, you know, are the car companies going to survive, or they're going to be able to meet their liabilities. So it was all coming together at this time, those experiences you had the strengths that you had the characteristics, and I'm imagining the gentleman from the competitor who you mentioned, who said, I've got to go through a three week process, I can't imagine the process at BMW would have been any shorter than that. But you managed to either go around it or push through it or do something to act in the timescale that you needed to act.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Interestingly enough, BMW at that time, didn't have a process. So it was not, it was up to the group treasurer to decide on whether it's still valid today, I don't know. But at that time, you know, the group treasury department developed under the radar screen of any board member, even the CFO who was responsible at that time was still the CFO of a car companies typically responsible for the financial service activities had up until the financial crisis, no clue about the funding side. Now, because they had no banking experience, they don't understand as liability management is a key aspects of making money in the bank.
Andy:And it hadn't mattered before. It had never been an issue.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:No. But then it mattered. And I can tell you I looked into glory eyes.
Andy:Well, that was a remarkable. So I think you were personally very much at risk. Well not personally, I mean, we have to, again, bring this back to your military days. And my brother in law, who also had a full military career would sometimes remind me that, Andy, in your job, if things go wrong, nobody dies. Or they haven't so far in, in my financial services career. But in a corporate setting, in a commercial setting, you you were at risk,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I assume that if the bond offering would have failed, I would have to leave the company. Sometimes you have to be lucky in life.
Andy:Yeah. And bold and know the way and be prepared to take it and take people with you. What happened after that?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, after three years, I then switch basically beside from the liability side of the Financial Service businesses asset side and took over the responsibility of financial services globally.
Andy:Let's talk about that. So global, global responsibility, close to 9000 people now who you could have an influence over what was some of the things when you worked out, I know where to go after your 100 days or however long it took, what were your thoughts on Okay, this is where I want to go with this group of people in this business.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I was fortunate enough that we had the CEO meeting in Columbus, Ohio. And so all the I think 56 or so CEOs of all the different countries and regional managers were in Columbus, Ohio for a week. And that really helped me to have a similar discussion, like with the corporate finance team in the bank in New York, to really listen to what they explain what they what they talked about what are the challenges the opportunities, we talked about what what means a global culture. So, I was really fortunate to have this meeting. And I think this was another lucky or necessary week, to really get to know all the people their ideas, and to sharpen my vision of where to go. And that's where, for example, this idea of what to do with Alphabet, the fleet management company developed very strongly, because we were too small to be successful and too large to die. So we really had to think about m&a activities, which we ultimately then was acquisition of the NG Carlist business did, but it developed in this discussion with these CEOs.
Andy:I say, and I plan to ask you about that acquisition, which was the largest acquisition,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:second largest acquisition of BMW
Andy:And then your m&a background. Again, just perfect, supporting you being able to understand that and follow it through. And it was a successful I know, some of the things you did some very clear, you took some very clear actions during the course of that to bring those two businesses together to integrate Alphabet and ING, would you mind just sharing a few of the priorities that you set in terms of bringing the teams together?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, my experience in m&a was that most companies, I supported as an advisor, spent far too much time on the valuation piece and the diligence and the financial due diligence, but lacked the focus on the post merger integration. So what are we actually doing with this assets? So there's all the excitement about okay, do we over overpay and and are the numbers correct? And, and you spend hours and discussion discussing receivables, salaries of senior managers pension liabilities, but very rarely that you have an intensive discussion? How does the new organisation how does how does a new business going to look like. And I think the key differentiator was that we from the very from the first day of the due diligence, we had a strong team of how to build this new organisation. And as we all know, banking is about people in IT. IT you cannot fix that quickly. But the people you can lose quite quickly, particularly the strong ones. So we very quickly and we had the challenge that in some countries, the operations of both companies, BMW Financial Services or Alphabet, and ING Car Lease had the similar size. So to me, it was clear, you cannot have them operate in parallel. So I asked the team to come up with a proposal before we sign and then we did a roadshow at signing, and then you have the period till closing where a lot of uncertainty is where we outlined how we're going to do it. And we decided on the on in each country on the key management levels within this period between signing and closing. So we didn't implement post merger integration project. Or we we had this inline function of the responsibility of our CEO and CEO of the respective country. So before you close the deal, you had already determined who the leadership senior leadership team in each market. One, we didn't know this people. But I said, Okay, we're not going to have parallel organisations. We have integrated organisations. That means we have two CEOs and we have to select one. And in this discussion with the CEO of ING Car Lease and the guy who did run Alphabet at the time, I decided to have both in a call CEO role to support this, this integration, and the CEO of ING Car Lease was close to retirement. So another two or three years to really support this transformation, integration and building a new culture. But both of them had the task of deciding to come up with a decision who is going to be the CEO of Great Britain, the CFO and the CEO. And the task was to announce the new leadership team and to have a fair opportunity for the ones who are not CEO anymore, or CFO
Andy:So that meant you wasted no time there was no time lost from closing to somebody knew that they owned this or some group of people knew they owned their success in that market from the moment that
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I strongly believe that you have to have this in the line function rather than a project, a lot of m&a transactions within a project, and then the line managers do not let them succeed. What good is this, there's a huge potential of conflict of interest. Yeah. So you have to solve this immediately.
Andy:That sounds like a significant step. Were there other key points cuz I want to ask you about culture as well. You mentioned the culture that you wanted to create in that organisation, I want to talk about the broader culture that you wanted to create, you did create in financial services in BMW Financial Services. But are there any other key points from that integration process?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, there are obviously, a lot of people involved there, there were a lot of concerns within the BMW Group, including the board members to spend a significant billion a month on an acquisition for financial services. And without the support of the CFO at that time, who trusted me in my strategic assessment, that we either close Alphabet, or we do major acquisition, and that the ING Car Lease acquisition is a huge opportunity as ING were forced, after the financial crisis to sold these assets. He thought that's valuable. Luckily, it played out nicely for financially, and also a number of cars sold to be managed in these fleets. So, but without him, I most likely wouldn't have been successful. Getting the approval to do it.
Andy:Yes, that is a good point, Eric, because sometimes, you were in a very senior role, your Global Head of Financial Services, but nevertheless, you still need the support of people, senior to you and the support of the board to make an acquisition like that. Very good. And so moving on to the culture topic. When you looked at the Global Financial Service you were in Columbus, Ohio, met with the CEOs, you're taking over this, this area, what were your thoughts on what you wanted how you wanted the culture to develop?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I think after this week, there was clear feedback of most of the people outside of Munich, that there is no global culture. And there is a headquarter culture. And then there are some cultures in their respective markets. But there's very little local interactivity. And my predecessor already tried to push very hard, but obviously, in the financial crisis, he had other topics to solve. So yeah, that's where we started to think about how we're going to change it. And then we had this idea of doing it bottom up. So we did this generation financial services, as it was called. And the idea behind it was to that every market, every country selects one or two young colleagues, and that they develop an idea how a global culture should look like. And then they were asked to align on the internet. So they they basically aligned globally. And this was moderated by a coach and some of the coaching people within BMW. And it was super helpful. Yeah, a big threat to some of my colleagues here, Munich, Financial Services colleagues, there were some regional managers who heavily supported it, others didn't like it. But at the end of the day, if you engage with the young talent in your organisation, you get a very unpolitical open view on things. And if they can interact with with each other, they get more comfortable with it. So if, if I would have asked each of these young talents, they probably wouldn't have told me what they discussed in the group and then presented as a group outcome.
Andy:Yeah. Well, I would say we're lucky enough to witness it and saw the level of excitement that it generated, and they were committed and they liked reaching out and the bonds that they formed and very proud to have that role, as well. And I think they will look back on it very fondly with being that period and that they were part of that generation. Financial Services team. Is there I'm thinking are there other from your financial services period, as Head of Financial Services Erich? We've got the Alphabet ING integration. Were there other major points that stand out for you?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, not necessarily. There were, you know, challenges. Every day, I think one point in terms of leadership is that I learned with a coach, how to deal with a global organisation timewise. And she really asked me to reduce my fully booked schedule by 30%, which I find the most valuable input of a coach I ever had. So I had this exercise with my secretary, which nearly killed me and say, Okay, going forward, 30% of your calendar is empty. Because You're much too much involved in operational daily activity. That's not your job as a global head. And you have to delegate and you have to trust your direct reports and others much more. Because you have to have the flexibility to direct that really, really helped me the rest of my career. And whenever someone asks me, What was a major learning then it was this 30%, empty calendar
Andy:I can imagine a lot of people listening to this. And if you could do it with 40 countries and 9000 people to take care of, then there's probably quite a few other people who could could do that, too. Was it your decision to work with the coach? Was that your own choice?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I was to ask, at some point, whether I want to like whether I want to do it. And I felt okay. It's I had three coaches in my professional career, the first one I didn't like, because I thought I'm am a good leader. Anyway. So this was this level of investment banking arrogance, which I still had at that time. And the second one was already quite helpful. And the lady the third one was super helpful in many aspects. And I had, and I think it was, it started after the financial crisis, because the two years of the financial crisis really stressed me out. So I think today I was, I would, if I look back, I was very close to burnout. Because I couldn't deal with well I had this feeling that I'm the only person understanding what what's happening on the liability side, I couldn't talk to a CFO who had experience. So I put this everything in my, let's say, my personal responsibility. And that started to eat me up.
Andy:Yeah, that makes sense. Because you weren't working in a, in a bank, in the sense that you were used to working in a bank where other people would have understood.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:And you're and you're totally alone. As a group treasurer, if you go to a board member who is an engineer, he can tell you about the driving performance of a car, but not the performance of a bond market. And if you anyone to reflect on making decisions is really hard.
Andy:Yeah. So you felt that weight of that responsibility over the global financial crisis and a coach helped to, it helped to work with the coach. After financial services, what came after financial services,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:after financial services came my last big assignment that was After Sales.
Andy:So Global Head of Aftersales for BMW,
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:so the whole service area, so whenever you have a problem with your car, it's the after sales department, make sure that the right parts technology is at the right dealership, and the dealer has the right technology to fix the car
Andy:And we had a number of conversations during those years and you were as excited, you were approaching that with the same find a way to go share a clear vision. High energy
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:what you learn in financial services is that you have a direct interaction with your customer because your customer signs a Lease Finance contract. So financial services in the car industry is the point of direct interaction with the customer, rather than the car company itself, because it sells the cars to a dealer and the dealers interaction point to the customer. And all of the car companies do not reflect the importance of service. Now because all the senior engineers, they're all excited about new cars, but dealing with a 10 year old car can be painful. And they forget about the customer behind this 10 year old car. Because this there's a customer who decided to buy or purchase a used car which is 10 years old. And he decided on this particular brand, in my case BMW. So I started basically the same process as I did in the corporate finance department, New York or in financial services. I used the methodology, which I think was developed by the universities, and which was shown to me by my daughter, which is called Business Model Canvas. And there are a couple of nice two or three minute videos how to develop a business model. And I tried it, I showed it to the senior team of after sales and said okay, let's think about how we would set up after sales if we had a clean sheet of paper, which was a super exciting process. And you really realise the opportunities. But you'll also realise the gap between the today structure and the potential which we worked out with the business model canvas
Andy:I will put the link to that business model canvas concept. concept in the show notes for this episode, as well, you shared that with me before. And it's that's what happens you put a new set of ideas, new way of looking at a part of the business that's well established, it's become what it has over a number of years for all very good reasons at the time, but exciting to be able to start with a blank sheet of paper, not just for you, but for the people you are working with in that team, I'm sure especially when you've got a really well established business behind you. So it's not like a startup where there's all the risk, you're getting to redesign something, but knowing that you are an established and well funded business. And
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:the startup experience really helped me because, you know, it really helps you to understand that you that you're not going to survive as a startup, if you if you're not, at some point, take your innovative idea. And to work your way through a business model. Who's going to pay, you know, what kind of services are necessary? Who are your partners, the whole concept, and I felt a lot of startups, which I talked to these days, don't take the effort, they have a great idea. But they don't take the effort to use this business model canvas or other strategies to develop a solid business case behind the idea. And if you take traditional businesses, you have to take at some point, a white sheet of paper to develop lets say a business model, which you would develop if you would be completely free. And then look at the gaps and how the transformation is going to look like.
Andy:Absolutely. So I'm conscious of time, Erich, and there are still some places I want to to go. I know you had another role after after sales, which was equally fascinating in terms of looking at new business opportunities, new market opportunities and developing products potentially, do you want to say a couple of words about that?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:I think at some point, the company is struggling with Latin America, Asia, and Africa as markets. So they asked me, probably based on my background, thinking out of the box, how to develop it. And I didn't want to use a typical strategy team in the organisation, because most of them have never spent time in these markets had no clue about the cultural aspects, the political aspect. So I was lucky to have my daughter writing her master thesis, and complaining that she always has to recall on some events, which happened in the past, and that they were never allowed to focus on something new. So yeah, I developed the idea with some colleagues in Brazil and India and South and South Africa, to engage with the technical universities in these countries, and to ask the masterclasses of these universities to develop a business model, as if they would be CEO of BMW Brazil. And the only requisite was to stick to the existing car portfolio. So don't come up with this pick up proposal because BMW was not going to, at that time had no idea to do a pickup. So that was super fascinating. And we had in all countries all the professor's were super engaged. The proposals were thought through they did customer interviews, it was a really thrilling experience dealing with with these guys in India, they built a mathematical model where I thought to myself, luckily, I'm at the end of my career, because these people are far too smart to me.
Andy:I can only imagine how engaging it must have been for them to deal with something real. Yeah, and not as Laura said, not always having to do something that's already done and in the past and, you know, rework an old case study I guess Yeah, so fascinating approach again, drawing on young people drawing on emerging talent. Really good story. The last thing I wanted, you've mentioned, Laura mentioned, Philipp. The last thing I wanted to talk about, we were together for your birthday party. Not so long ago, towards the end of that evening celebration, Philip and Laura gave a speech, which for me was the highlight. I mean, it was an amazing, amazing day, but still, as a father, it was a highlight that speech that they gave. And we said, when we talk, we should spend a little bit of time talking about that, and what, what that meant to you compared with all these other amazing things we've just talked about, you know, the amazing achievements you've had, let's just spend a few minutes talking about parenting and, and how did you feel when you were listening to their speech?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, that, you know, honestly, that was the absolute highlight. And if if your kids are being that positive to you, then you feel very grateful as a Father. And I definitely, if I look back, I definitely had times where I didn't spend enough time with Laura and Philipp, which I definitely regretted afterwards. And I thought I need to, I need to spend this time, which this lady, the coach told me, that is not true. You don't make a career by sitting each and every day till 10 o'clock in an office. There are other qualities which are necessary. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I think my wife and I always tried to be extremely open, and not trying to direct them, but support them. So all their ideas were strongly supported. So when Laura was 15, she wanted to spend six months in Canada, which she did, and Philip, and the same age, that six months High School in Australia, they came back as little adults. And it was particular, when Laura went to Canada, it was a that was a tough experience, when your kids starting to get independent, and all of a sudden, they're gone. And you take them to the airport, you have you have no way to interact with them if they land in Vancouver. So letting letting the kids go and support them rather than to direct them was one of their key key success factors if you want to phrase it this way. Engage with them, I do mountain biking with them, I do skiing with both of them having the same hobbies, so trying to not only focus on the on their professional career, but also understand what makes them happy and see whether you can combine this with your life, engage and engage in these activities. That was what Sabine and I really did. For the last 20 years.
Andy:Have you because of your life experience being different from your parents life experience? You didn't have the Second World War featuring and that has that allowed you to have a lighter touch, if you like and be more comfortable to let them let Philip and Laura pursue the path that they want to pursue?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah, definitely, I think our generation or my generation had a more stable platform to start with. I think we didn't have to deal with the horrible experience of a world where also the material uncertainty, the financial uncertainty as an outcome of a war. At the end of the day, we grew up in a well protected environment. So we could, I think, let the kids experience their way of life much more open than my parents or the generation of my parents could do or was willing to do, because they were much more focused, let's say to ensure that we have a better life than they had. And this I think this thought process didn't exist in Sabine and my head. It's more, let them develop and see where it takes them and support them and try to protect them from some bad decisions.
Andy:Well, it was very clear to see that you've done a wonderful job if that's the right thing to say about being a parent. But yeah, it was great to see and definitely a highlight. Lastly, I guess then Erich What are you up to now? What are you interested if people want to contact you? What are you interested to talk about and connect about? What's what's what's going on in your life now?
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Well, I always had this idea that in after my professional career, I want to support companies with my experience in a non executive role. So I'm on two non executive boards. And I'm engaged in a startup company to help them with their funding with their strategy, these are the type of activities I'm very excited about. Yeah. And then then I enjoy sports. So I live in my sport teacher dream. Yeah.
Andy:Is there anything I haven't asked you, Eric, that you think I've missed an opportunity to? I think you know, you've unfolded my whole life. And that was the plan was the plan. And thank you so much for affording me so much time. And having this conversation with me today. It's been it's absolute privilege to get you on the show, as it were.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Yeah. You're welcome.
Andy:Thank you very much, indeed.
Erich Ebner von Eschenbach:Thank you for taking me.
Andy:You've been listening to Career-view Mirror with me, Andy follows. I hope you found some helpful points to reflect on in Erich's story that can help you with your own career journey, or that of those who lead, parent or mentor. You are unique. And during my conversation with Erich, you'll have picked up on topics that resonate with you. A few things that stood out for me were that his first choice would have been to have been a sports teacher. But his father, like many others at that time, encouraged him into a career in banking, and the financial security it offered. The experience gained in military service leading men from an early age and in challenging physical situations. The positive experience of a role where he could ski at lunchtime, followed by the not so positive experience of living in New York on $450 per month, eventually getting back to New York with a young family for a bigger job to turn around the failing corporate finance arm of the bank, the senior leader who promised Erich a role when it came available, only to admit he'd forgotten about him when the time came around. Transitioning from a secure bank environment to a riskier startup, where the trading environment prevented the planned IPO followed by successful development and sale of BMW owned Softbank, two NTT DATA, the experience he gained on the trading floor and the understanding of capital markets that would serve Him So Well, in building up BMWs Treasury function and handling the global financial crisis. The challenge of being an isolated expert in any organisation whose core business is not what you're an expert in. In Erich's case, being a capital markets guy in an engineering company, the coach who encouraged him to keep 30% of his calendar free to be able to react when in a global role, the approach to the successful integration of ING and Alphabet putting responsibility into the line functions rather than a project team. Taking a blank sheet of paper to after sales, and using the business model canvas, leveraging the universities in Brazil and India to devise strategies for mobility in their markets, and the emphasis placed on raising a family and supporting them to follow their own passions. You can contact Erich via email, and we'll put his address in the show notes to this episode. We publish these episodes to celebrate my guests careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. And I'm genuinely interested in what resonated with you. Thank you to all of you for sharing your feedback. Thanks also to Hannah and Julia, who as part of the Career-view Mirror team here at Aquilae work so hard to deliver these episodes to you. This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by Aquilae. Aquilae's mission is to enable fulfilling performance in the mobility industry, we use our very own fulfilling performance paradigm to help you identify the steps you need to take to enable fulfilling performance in your business, contact me directly if you'd like to know more my email is andy@aquilae.co.uk. If you want to know more about fulfilling performance, you can also listen to episode 60, 61 and 62. They're short side mirror episodes that explain our mission and its origin. And remember folks if you know people who would benefit from hearing these stories, please show them how to find this. Thanks for listening