By four o’clock, having eaten nothing more than a sandwich at my desk, feeling the desperate need for alcohol, and with my face twitching at a medium fast rate, I’m overcome by the desire to do something. You know what they say. Lonely? Bored? Depressed? Call a meeting! I call a meeting.
My meeting takes place in the conference room next to my office. Maria summons for me the heads of equities, fixed income, treasury, foreign exchange and structured finance. I ask where the head of corporate finance is, but am reminded that we don’t actually do corporate finance. Oh.
I find myself staring around the table at a group of nervous, defensive verging on hostile, fifty-something men. So this is where they all go when they get moved on from proper firms. At Bartons only the Chairman and the people actually running the firm were over fifty. I realise then that the Grossbank London office was a sayonara job.
I get them each to give me five minutes on their business area, its achievements, strengths, weaknesses, and finally ask them to say who on their team they would rate as their star performer. I make notes, nod, twitch, but don’t smile. When the last of them has finished, I pass a note to Maria, then while away the minutes in small talk, asking them how long they’ve all been at Grossbank, where they were before, do they have kids – or even grandchildren – and so on.
The London head of HR is in my office, summoned by Maria, and in another glass-sided conference room, visible to the heads of business areas sitting with me, another group is assembling – the individuals they named as their star performers, or at any rate the people in their departments who were the least bad.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen – I’ll be right back.’ I leave the conference room and return to my office. The head of HR looks no different to the men I’ve just left – mid-fifties, tired, ragged round the edges, on the downward slope of a City career.
‘I’m Dave Hart – what’s your name?’
‘Charles Butler, Mister Hart.’
‘Call me Dave.’ I point to the conference room I’ve just left. ‘Charles, do you see those men in there?’
‘Yes, Dave.’
‘You know who they are?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good, because I’m firing everyone in the room. Call Security, have them send some people up to walk them out of the building. Tell your people to draw up severance papers.’ I pat him on the arm and return to the conference room, where there is a sweaty odour of fear and a deathly hush.
I stand at the end of the table. ‘Gentlemen, this place is a joke.’ One or two of them frown and cross their arms, and there are a couple of muttered ‘Steady on’s’. I pause and stare around the table, waiting for absolute silence. ‘I don’t feel like I’ve come into an investment bank at all. I feel like I’ve walked onto the set of “Carry On Banking”. Well let me assure you, there’s a new era dawning at Grossbank.’ They nod, trying to summon some enthusiasm, though probably feeling sick to their stomachs. ‘An era of high performance, high ambition…’ I hesitate before allowing myself to smile. ‘…and high pay.’
‘Hear, hear!’ It’s the head of treasury, Norman something or other.
I pause and stare at him. ‘Be quiet, you obsequious little shit.’ My face is twitching, right on cue, and I stare at him.
‘I… I’m sorry.’
‘Quiet!’ I slam my hand down hard on the table, then look slowly around the room. On the trading floor beyond the glass walls of the conference room people are looking at us, wondering what’s going on. They know the men in this room. The men in this room run Grossbank London. They are Grossbank London. And now, as they look at me, they are truly frightened. This man kills. This Dave Hart, a man they’d never heard of until last year, a man who took out a gangster with his bare hands, now seems barely under control. They are fascinated by my twitching face, the scar, the manic spittle that flies whilst I talk.
‘A new era is dawning, and you, gentlemen, will not be part of it.’ I point at them each in turn. ‘You, and you, and you, and you, and you, have failed. All of you. You had one of the greatest opportunities in investment banking in the City of London, and you blew it.’ I look up to see several security guards standing outside with Charles Butler and a couple of his assistants. All activity has come to a stop on the trading floor. All eyes are on me, standing in this glass bubble with five – five – petrified victims in front of me. For years I took this shit. Now I’m dishing it out. Awesome. My voice is a hoarse whisper. ‘You had the opportunity to build something great, with the strength, the muscle, of one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions behind you. And you didn’t even know it. You’re all fired. Now get out of here!’
This job rocks.
As if one meeting in an afternoon isn’t enough, I then walk over to the second conference room. The group sitting here are about ten to fifteen years younger than their bosses, one or two look quite keen and bright, but in general they strike me as classic big fishes in small, sleepy ponds. Only now there’s a shark loose in their pond.
Once again, I position myself at the end of the table, standing looking down at them. ‘Gentlemen, good afternoon. We haven’t actually met, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m not proposing to go through the usual round of introductions.’ I look around the table with a sort of twisted half smile on my face. ‘You see that room over there?’ They nod and glance over to where I’ve come from, where a group of bitter, broken men are being led away to collect their personal belongings. ‘I’ve just fired everyone in that room.’ This brings a sharp intake of breath, tempered by a venal, self-interested glint in the eyes of one or two who think they see an opportunity. ‘Some of you won’t be around long enough to make it worthwhile investing the time in getting to know you. Those who make it will soon get to know me anyway. I’m placing each of you in temporary charge of your departments. If I don’t see a material improvement in results over the next month, you’ll be replaced. If you deliver, you can expect great things. Each of you will have a five minute slot with me each day to report how well you’ve done. Don’t send me paper, don’t send me e-mail – talk to me. And each day I’ll be spending at least an hour walking round the office, dropping in from time to time, just to keep my finger on the pulse. You’ll get used to it.’
I actually have no idea what their results are like. For all I know they might be stellar, though from the look of the previous heads of businesses I doubt it. Anyway, it was my first Monday. I was bored, and I hate January.
Two meetings in one day is quite enough. When I get back to my office I tell Maria to get me Herman on the phone.
‘Herman? Hi, it’s Dave. Great. First day’s been terrific. We’re making very significant progress already. I’ve just fired everyone.’
By five thirty I’m out of there, in a cab home, calling up Ilyana from Kiev and Natalia from Bucharest.
TUESDAY’S FINANCIAL press carries some interesting stories. The best headline reads Bloodbath at Grossbank. I wonder what Rory will make of that one. They’re all running the line that ‘City hard man’ Dave Hart marked his first day in his new job by firing all the heads of department in what was clearly a carefully orchestrated plan. The tiny quarter page devoted to business news in the Daily Post is the one I like best: Hart by Name, Hard by Nature.
But now the heat’s on and I need to move fast.
When I get to the office, somewhere around nine-thirty, I call another meeting. Maria’s already finding it hard to get people to come to meetings with me, but I insist that they drop whatever they were doing and attend. The first meeting is with Bill Foreman, who is nominally in charge of marketing and PR for the London operation. I say ‘nominally’, because before I came here, people had barely heard of Grossbank London.
He’s a lean, nervous type in his mid-thirties, wearing a collarless shirt buttoned up to the top and no tie. Probably thinks it’s media-cool. He worked for a succession of minor PR agencies before winding up at Grossbank five years ago.
When he fir
st enters my office, I’m sitting in my big leather power-chair, staring out the window. He stands awkwardly, coughs, and then falls silent, waiting for me to acknowledge him. He probably thinks it’s a power game, but the reality is that Ilyana and Natalia gave me simply the best time ever last night. I don’t know what we were all on – well, I do, but I’m not telling you – but we carried on until four, and I’m honestly feeling pretty shagged out, as well as hung over – and yes, I know it’s January, but anyone can slip momentarily. I’ve got shadows under my eyes and I feel as if I’m labouring just that little bit harder against gravity today – it’s a 2G day. With a monumental effort I swing my chair around and stare at him. I have only a mild twitch, probably due to tiredness rather than stress. He remains standing, awkwardly, and I don’t signal him to sit down.
‘Bill, our PR is crap.’
‘I – I agree.’
‘You agree?’ I’m taken aback by his candour.
‘Of course. It’s all directed from Frankfurt, and they have no idea how the British press works. Their marketing campaigns are crass and heavy-handed, and they never want to spend any money.’
‘Oh.’ I gesture to the chair beside him, the strategically low, deep chair that leaves even the tallest visitor looking up at me, either hunched forward with their feet on the ground, or sitting right back with their legs dangling. He chooses to hunch, cravenly I feel, probably anticipating a summary execution.
Perhaps he senses my hesitation, and like a Death Row inmate holding out for a governor’s pardon, he’ll say anything to secure a delay in the sentence. ‘Have you ever seen the posters they wanted us to put up? The huge ones to go on billboards in the City, and as full page ads in the financial press? If size matters to you, choose Grossbank – can you imagine? We’d have been a laughing stock. Then they had Grossbankers make sure our clients come first and we come second – they’d commissioned all this from a German agency that had never done any work in the UK. It was all I could do not to use this stuff.’
Remarkable. A head of marketing and PR, who spends his time avoiding marketing. But I can see what he means.
‘Bill – which is the most expensive, trendy, high profile PR firm in the UK?’
‘Ball Taittinger.’
‘Get them in here. I want to meet them to discuss a marketing campaign for Grossbank London.’
‘You bet. Fantastic. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for years.’ He looks as if a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
‘Bill?’
‘Yes, Mister Hart?’
‘Call me Dave. Bill – congratulations!’
‘Wh… what do you mean?’
‘You’ve just survived a meeting with me. You see, it is possible.’
He laughs, thinking I’m joking, but when I don’t respond he dries up.
‘Thank you, Bill.’
He tries to stutter something, nods and exits.
Next on is Charles Butler, the head of HR. I’ve got in front of me the bonus list for last year.
‘Charles, these bonuses were a disgrace.’
‘Wh – what do you mean, Dave?’
‘I mean how can people live, when they get paid like this, let alone perform out there in the market?’
‘I – I don’t see your point. Last year was a pretty reasonable year by Grossbank standards.’
‘But the biggest bonus paid, presumably to one of our “star performers”, was three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Charles, how can a man live on that sort of money? Don’t our people have wives and children and homes and yachts and fast cars? Don’t they have dreams and aspirations, mistresses and drug habits?’
He’s not sure how to take this last point, and smiles and nods – just the way I did with Rory! – as if he’s getting used to my slightly zany sense of humour. ‘But Dave – the firm can only pay what it produces. We’re not very profitable.’
It’s true. The whole London office produced less last year than the worst performing business area at Bartons – mine, as it happens – so they couldn’t pay out.
‘Charles, all this is going to change. We’re going to implement Plan Alpha.’
‘Plan Alpha?’
I nod. ‘Plan Alpha. It’s what I discussed with the board in Frankfurt.’ They didn’t actually know it as Plan Alpha, and neither did I until a few seconds ago, but it’s all I can manage when I feel like this. I get up and walk over to a flip chart. ‘Charles – you know the management structure we’ve employed in the past in London?’
‘Of course. Matrix reporting. Business heads reported in functionally to Frankfurt, and each region had its “champion” on the board, with geographic responsibility.’
I pause. I didn’t know that. It sounds pretty sensible to me. But it’s such an effort to stand here concealing my hangover, that I press on anyway.
‘We’re going to adopt a new structure.’ I pick up a red marker pen and draw a square box on the flip chart. Inside the box I write ‘Me’. ‘Okay, Charles, let’s take this slowly. Here I am. Are you with me so far?’
He nods, giving me an uncertain, sideways look. I then draw two diagonal lines stretching downwards and outwards from the first box. I draw two more boxes and write in one, ‘Head of Markets’, and in the other ‘Head of Corporate’. I turn back to Charles.
‘This is the new structure. Simple, lean, streamlined, easy to understand and manage.’ I point at the two boxes. ‘The head of markets runs equities, fixed income, treasury, foreign exchange, and the head of corporate runs all the corporate client facing businesses – structured finance, corporate lending, project finance, new business areas we don’t yet have a presence in, like mergers and acquisitions, leasing and capital raising. The underlying businesses report in to them. They make a whole raft of strategic hires, bring in complete teams from other firms, and take responsibility for their businesses and their results.’
‘So what do you do?’
‘I’m in charge of the two of them.’
He seems puzzled, as if he doesn’t quite get it. ‘But I thought you…’
I cut him off. I don’t have time to waste. ‘Charles, I’m going to need the best headhunters in the business ready and raring to go when these people come on board. We’ll be hiring people like they’re going out of fashion.’
He points to the two boxes I’ve just drawn. ‘B – but do you know who these people are?’
‘Sure. I’m planning to recruit both of them this week.’
IT’S FRIDAY MORNING, and I’m having breakfast at Claridge’s with Paul Ryan, the Chief Operating Officer at Hardman Stoney. A few weeks ago, Paul wouldn’t even have taken my call, but now he’s positively deferential.
In fact they all are. Just in the past few days I’ve had breakfasts, lunches and dinners with a bunch of people who would never previously have given me the time of day. Some of them tell me they checked me out with Rory, who was unusually reticent and if he did say anything, limited his advice to telling them to ‘be careful’. The kind of people I’m talking about are all in the ‘three million and over’ club – that’s annual bonus, in case you were wondering. They’re successful, wealthy people accustomed to dealing at the top table.
And I wouldn’t hire any of them.
The reason I’m having breakfast with Paul is that he’s different. The others I wanted to meet because I needed a crash course in top table manners and conduct – the way they speak, the way they relate to one another, the things they think about. Pretty soon I’ll find myself in a situation outside the safe haven of Grossbank’s London office, and I’ll have to act the part. The Emperor might be stark naked, but there’s nothing to be gained from advertising the fact.
And if I’m honest, I got an ever so tiny thrill from having Maria call these people up and invite them out, at very short notice, so I could listen to what they had to say while scarcely opening my mouth, and then not offer them a job. It spooks them, when nothing happens, and it creases me up.
Pau
l on the other hand is quiet, serious, understated, and very practical. He’s six-foot three, with a lean, athletic build, wavy dark hair, film star good looks, a neat, perfectly trimmed appearance, and a penchant for wearing sunglasses throughout the year. Naturally, being so good looking and well turned out, he’s gay. The reason he’s COO of one of the biggest and most aggressive US firms is that he gets things done. Senior investment bankers can generally talk a good story – at least by the time they reach board level – but they’re not good at doing things.
Paul knows his business inside out. He designed the software programmes that the firm runs on, and he’s a master of the detail that sends me to sleep but keeps a business running: information and reporting systems, risk management, IT.
‘Don’t you get sick of being COO?’
‘Why should I? I’m irreplaceable, no one wants my job, and I get very well paid. I keep my head down, stay out of the politics, and don’t get hurt when the market falls out of bed or rates go haywire.’
‘But is this it? Is this as far as you go?’
‘What else is there?’
‘How old are you?’
‘Forty-one.’
‘Forty-one? That’s crazy. You can’t stop now. You can’t just… hang up your ambition and say “that’s it, I’m going to sit here and get fat and happy”.’ Everyone needs a new challenge.’
‘What sort of challenge?’
I lean forward across the table and try to put on my energised, enthusiastic, messianic look – though not too close, in case he gets a hint of my stale alcohol breath. I came here directly from an all night session with Barbara from Estonia and Nina from Columbia.
‘Head of Markets at Grossbank.’ I hold up my hand and start counting off businesses. ‘Let me see – running equities, fixed income, treasury, FX, derivatives, commodities and precious metals…’
‘But Grossbank isn’t in half those businesses, and the ones you are in you come nowhere. You’re talking fantasy investment banking.’
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