Biography
Richard Thomas is the Head of EFG International’s UK Region and member of the Global Business Committee since 02 January 2019. In addition, he is CEO of EFG Private Bank Ltd, London, EFG International’s wholly owned subsidiary in United Kingdom.
Prior to joining EFG, Richard Thomas worked at Barclays UK, where he last held the role of Chief Operating Officer, Savings, Wealth and Investments. He joined Barclays in 2008 and served as Chief Operating Officer UK Private Bank from 2015 to 2017 and Business Head London Region and Specialist Proposition UK from 2012 to 2015. Before that, he was a Managing Director and Team Leader UK. Prior to his career at Barclays, he held senior posts in the UK’s Ministry of Defence and held the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy.
Richard Thomas is a British citizen and was born in 1967. He holds a Sloan Fellowship MSc in Business Strategy and Leadership from London Business School as well as a MA in Defence Studies from King’s College London. He was awarded the MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 2000 for his service abroad.
Throughout the wealth management industry, there is much talk of ‘modernisation’ as a kind of panacea. Technology solutions are cited in this context. But, in the framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, modernisation has to be subject to strategy.
For EFG Private Bank Ltd, CEO Richard Thomas MBE, modernisation raises questions.
“At EFG, we’re very fortunate that we tend to have long term relationships with our clients. Our Client Relationship Officers also have a history of staying with the bank for a very long time. We think it’s a great competitive advantage, because that gives the clients continuity, and we get a better understanding of their needs.” We should therefore know better than anyone what they want in terms of new technology and digital functionality, and it will change throughout the course of a relationship. This was particularly true in 2020, when our ways of remote working changed at an unprecedented speed. Yes, it was modernisation, but it was born out of client desire driven by the necessity to fix some very specific needs. There is no reason for a headlong rush to modernisation for its own sake.
The question is: “What modernisation’? It must be aligned with our key stakeholders – our clients – and this kind of dialogue has been missing from the modernisation push across the sector. Change for the sake of change isn’t always a good thing – there should always be choice in change. There are certain traditional elements that clients will always expect from a pure-play private bank like us. We know this, because they tell us the personal, bespoke touch leads to greater understanding and a better relationship.
Whilst change is ever present, I don’t think a company’s values should change much over time. I think values should remain a constant of an organisation. They should be something that the culture is built from. And if you want to build cultures, then it takes a very long time. So, you need to set your benchmarks early and you need to stick to them.
I think strategies should also be constant. I view strategies as setting a general direction, from which there should be only minimal variation. We may have tactical choices, to launch this or that preferred technology, for example. I think both the clients and organisations benefit from consistency, particularly when it comes to values and strategy.
Nor, says Thomas, should values vary across a large organisation. He focuses on ‘glocalization,’ a term that was coined in the Harvard Business Review, in 1980, by sociologist Roland Robertson, who wrote that glocalization meant “the simultaneity—the co-presence—of both universalising and particularising tendencies.”
We understand that from a jurisdictional point of view, there are cultural differences, with 40+ locations around the world, our clients want different things in different regions. But you can still have consistent group wide messages around values and strategy combined with local understanding of a region. It’s an essential part of a bespoke offering. So, we used to call this back in the day, glocalization, a wonderful term for this concept.
I think of it like the difference between doctrine and dogma. You could have a worldwide doctrine. But then if you tried to make it a dogma in the individual locations of the organisation, then you know you’re not really thinking about those locations and the clients’ interests in the best possible way.”
Across the globe, clients are also supposed to have begun to ‘live in financial times’ Thomas does see an evolution in client expectations and in the demand for technology solutions.
“I think everyone is, at some level, more knowledgeable since the financial crisis of 2008. I think there’s been a significant upgrading of what I would call the general understanding of finance across the world, because people suddenly became very, very interested. Finance has become more transparent, and easier to access via technology during that period too. Greater access can lead to greater awareness.
I think there is a greater level of sophistication, there are better questions from clients, more insightful questions of what’s happening with their portfolios, and concern about specific themes like Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). There’s a common belief that these macro trends are going to deliver value for clients over time. And we want to service that while weaving it into a broader standard portfolio.
We’re also seeing changes in the client base with a greater emphasis on first generation wealth as well – these are people who’ve made their money in their lifetimes. There has been an emergence of new entrepreneurs. They are not necessarily from backgrounds that would normally interact with private banks. That sits very nicely with one of our founding principles around entrepreneurship and the idea that we are a contemporary, solutions driven organisation.
I think one of the biggest changes I have seen in the recent past is this concentration of first-generation wealth, and the emergence of perhaps a new generation of entrepreneurs who often draw little distinction between their businesses and their personal fortunes. They consider it to be one set of decisions.
Thomas insists that EFG has avoided many of the trends across wealth management today, by focusing on its core values.
“So EFG is a pure-play private bank. We are not commoditizing on products, nor are we focusing on scale as are many others in the industry. We focus on traditional private bank values, but with a modern touch. We see a real need for a full-service private bank with traditional values and long-term relationships with an entrepreneurial, solution-driven focus. We’re seeing clients come to us based on that position, and we’re very happy with the growth that we’re currently generating.
Cyprus offers great opportunities to reach an HNWI clientele that seeks us out for our core values, Thomas says.
I’ve been with EFG just over two years. It became clear at the outset that the connection with the UK was very strong. I visited some years ago and I found the connection, even the visual cues, quite robust.
I think we’re the only Swiss private bank group with permanent representation in Cyprus. We have a great relationship and a growth market, and so we are expanding our presence in the island.
We also have a very strong team there, with Demetris Pisiaras, Chairman of the board of directors of EFG Cyprus Limited, and Costas Stylianou, Chief Executive Director
