The French had to get used to his direct style of communication, Belgian Stefaan Decraene noticed when he joined the board of BNP Paribas in Paris in 2011. The bank had just hired him to lead the retail division, say: the consumer branch. “I am quite direct in my interventions and I notice that some people are sometimes surprised,” he told the magazine at the time. Trends. “But I think I’m expected to blow a different wind. If I have something to say, I will say it.”
In that respect, the 57-year-old West Fleming seems perfect for Dutch culture. On Monday evening, Rabobank announced that Decraene is the intended successor of CEO Wiebe Draijer, who will retire on 1 October. Marjan Trompetter, chairman of the supervisory board, describes Decraene as a “result-oriented leader”, who must be able to get the best out of the organization with 43,000 employees. “Everything shows that people enjoy working with and for him.”
Nevertheless, his appointment is remarkable: Rabobank will have a foreign chairman of the board for the first time. One who in his previous position at BNP Paribas was used to constantly flying around the world, while Rabobank achieves more than 90 percent of its turnover within the Netherlands. Decraene also lacks experience with two important files that are now playing tricks on the bank: the nitrogen crisis and the associated question of how the bank can help farmers become more sustainable, and the anti-money laundering policy that has been inadequate for years.
The ECB supervisor has yet to finalize his appointment. That will not have happened before October 1; financial director Bas Brouwers will therefore temporarily act as interim chairman after Draijer’s departure. The bank hopes that Decraene can start work later in the autumn. A spokesperson for Rabobank did not want to say more about the approval procedure on Tuesday than that it is “a careful process that is still ongoing”.
credit crunch
In his early years, Decraene made a career at Dexia Bank in Brussels, after completing a degree in applied economics at the University of Leuven. He was a member of the Dexia board when the credit crisis broke out in 2008 and the bank had to be rescued by government intervention. At the end of September 2008, the governments of Belgium and France – the countries where Dexia was most active – invested billions of euros in keeping the bank afloat. The then French president Sarkozy appointed a confidant as chairman of the board.
As boss of the Belgian branch, Decraene acted as the group’s second man. In November 2008 he told the Flemish newspaper The morning that the worst crisis was over: although a number of bank branches would have to close, customer savings, which had flown out before, showed a ‘slight increase’ again.
This turned out to be an underestimate of the problems, because the French branch in particular continued to record heavy losses. In 2011, Dexia again headed for bankruptcy, after which the Belgian government saw no other option than to nationalize the bank for 4 billion euros.
A fierce power struggle between the French and Belgian bank executives had been raging for months in the boardroom. The Belgians were tired of the fact that the profits from their country were invariably used to keep the French branch afloat. After a number of fellow directors had resigned earlier that year, Decraene called it quits in September 2011, a month before the nationalization. After that, it rained superlatives in the Belgian press: daily newspaper The standard called him “Dexia’s most popular banker”. A colleague described Decraene in the newspaper as “a man who does not lose himself in details, has an eye for the main features and is very pleasant to deal with.” A big contrast with the French CEO Pierre Mariani, who, according to Belgian bankers, has “changed the image”. [had] decide everything on his own” and always called in the help of consultants when making difficult decisions.
With some sense of irony, Decraene then moved to France to join BNP Paribas. He became a board member and boss of the retail division, with 40,000 employees and offices in sixteen countries. He quickly felt at home in Paris, the magazine journalist noted Trends who visited him there. He enjoyed the small cups of coffee, and preferred to move around the French capital on foot. His family continued to live in Bruges, he himself only came to Belgium on weekends – he even gave up his regular season ticket at Club Brugge for his new job. “I needed something new,” he explained in his statement Trends. “I really like people who take a risk every now and then and step out of their comfort zone.”
His move to Rabobank certainly falls into that category.