Configuración hardware de la estación

In IB a written profile, detailing work performance (e.g. revenue generation, meeting of targets etc.) and project and client involvement, is completed for each candidate entering the promotion process. Although this is the LM’s responsibility the candidate is, frequently, actively involved with its creation.

Line managers, together with their nominated candidates, identify around 10 MDs with whom the candidate has worked during their tenure as Director, who

will have an understanding of the role the candidate is performing and who, the candidate hopes, will provide a fair assessment of their performance, contribution to the firm and, perhaps, their development needs.

The written profile is then circulated by the LMs to those selected MDs who will be asked to support and provide sponsorship for the candidate. This is the first stage in the formal promotion process in which the candidate receives support from other MDs within the firm. A ‘specialist’ is then appointed to carry out due diligence on each candidate – a process designed to verify the candidate’s suitability for the position of MD. Specialists are selected from across the existing senior MD population by the senior leaders of the various divisions;

specialists have many years of experience as an MD and are well respected throughout the business. Different senior MDs are selected for this role each year. Each specialist is allocated up to four candidates – the preference is for the specialist and candidate not to know each other and both parties are asked not to contact each other during the process. Candidates do not get feedback from specialists. This is designed to remove the possibility of personal prejudice and to create a level of objectivity and fairness in terms of candidate assessment.

Due diligence involves asking other MDs questions about a candidate’s strengths in terms of their relationships with clients (if they are in a revenue generating role), their performance and expertise in their functional role (if they are not revenue generators), their leadership skills, their team work, how they are as an individual etc. and their areas for development. HR provides each specialist with a set of documents which outlines their responsibilities, the timeline for each stage of the process and guidelines on the type of conversation they should have with each MD. It also includes a list of criteria against which each candidate is to be assessed¹⁶. The aim at this stage of the process is to build a comprehensive portfolio of information about each candidate.

16 A copy of the promotion criteria is included in Appendix A

Approaches to conducting due diligence varied between specialists I interviewed. Using the formal documents that were provided by HR, or not, seemed to be based on personal discretion and preferred style in carrying out the interviews. One said that, after having had so many years in the business, he did not need to refer to the documentation preferring instead to get ‘a feel’ for a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses through the conversations he had with MDs he had been asked to call. The other two specialists said that they always had the criteria in front of them to refer to but that the conversation invariably went off to ‘different places’ and the questions became ’nuanced’.

Two of the specialists described in detail the criteria they looked for when they made the calls and implied that both quantitative and qualitative criteria were important:

“No. 1 you’ve got to be a self-starter able to win, nurture and convert relationships into money; no. 2 you’ve not got to be a jerk, you’ve got to be a nice person who’s collegiate who is team player and believes in the value of the institution, who works with other people and is not too much of a lone wolf. Globank is a collegiate place where people help each other and work closely together and if you are a jerk you are not going to survive” (Specialist 1).

“….. looking for a high level of business performance, client effectiveness, professional effectiveness internally; teamwork; how do they manage franchise and credit risk, reputational risk etc. Then I diligence the cultural points such as team player, mentor, coaching etc. – they are a pre-requisite for consideration to MD. These are the 5 scorecard areas – business effectiveness, managing a franchise, credit risk, balance sheet and cultural piece including training, development and leadership)” (Specialist 3).

As with their approach to carrying out due diligence, the comparison between these criteria descriptions is interesting. Again, the first specialist appears to take a personal and subjective view of what he is looking for “a nice person who’s collegiate”, whereas specialist 3 appears to be considering specific sets

of skills, balanced between business effectiveness and personal effectiveness as a leader. This suggests that specialists have their own approach to carrying out due diligence, relying on an individual interpretation of what is required for the role of MD which may compromise the twin aims of objectivity and fairness.

Specialists initially talk to MDs selected by the candidate and their LM.

However, this list is almost always extended as MDs on the list make recommendations, to the specialist, about who else would be able to provide insight into the candidate’s suitability for the role of MD: “those are often good calls to make, you go off piste and talk to people they haven’t recommended you speak to and you may get a different view […] because those people have not been ‘tapped up’ to stay on message”. The use of the expression “tapped up” suggests that MDs may have been asked to present the candidate in a particularly favourable way. In total the specialist may speak to around 25 MDs for each nominated candidate.

The due diligence stage is time consuming and intensive and generally takes around 4 weeks to complete. During this time, specialists are in regular contact with their own business heads to check-in on progress and to discuss the feedback being collated for each candidate on an informal basis; this appears to act as a filtering system as some candidates may start to be selected out of the promotion process for that year if the specialist is not receiving the appropriate feedback and others begin to emerge as stronger contenders for promotion.

Once all the interviews have been conducted the specialists collate and summarise the information they have received. This is then presented at a formal committee meeting at which senior business leaders (EMEA and global leaders) and all specialists are present. In most cases specialists will meet with their own business heads the day before the formal committee sits to get agreement on which candidates they are going to present the following day.

Candidates are ranked into ‘buckets’ A-C or D. ‘A’s are their top picks (“slam dunks”) for promotion and are strong candidates, ‘D’s and some ‘C’s will be taken off the list as they are not likely to be considered ready or suitable for

promotion that year, ‘B’s and top ranking ‘C’s are those which generate the most discussion.

At the formal meeting specialists are all seated on one side of a large meeting table. Senior business leaders sit around the other three sides. Each specialist is invited to make a five minute presentation for each of their candidates. As the presentation is being made a photograph of the candidate under discussion is projected onto the four walls of the room. At the end of each presentation specialists are asked questions and additional comments are invited from those present.

After all presentations have been made specialists leave the room. They play no further part in the promotion process. The senior business leaders then discuss candidates further; selecting those they wish to go through to the final committee stage where appointment decisions will be made. Specialists describe this latter part of the process as:

“…. a bit closed door, we don’t really find out. We’ve done our job and then the politics start because there will be horse-trading around who wants to get who backed as an MD” (Specialist 1).

Interestingly, after the presentation of detailed information about each candidate, specialists speculate about what drives the promotion process from that point forward. Two of the three specialists I spoke to used the horse-trading metaphor suggesting a process based on shrewd bargaining and mutual exchange rather than one based on an objective measure of performance and merit.

An element of competition between specialists was evident. When they discovered which of ‘their’ candidates were promoted, one said: “[you want to see] how your candidates prevailed and how the majority got on”. This, perhaps reflects the competitive nature of the banking industry as well as demonstrating how quickly loyalty to ‘one’s own’ develops.