Ian Hodges, 46, is the head of retail banking at RAKBank. He oversees the financial institution’s 35 branches as well as its various business units including cards, business finance, wealth management, mortgages and loans. He is also directly responsible for guiding the heads of the business units in implementing the bank’s retail and small business strategy. Mr Hodges, from the United Kingdom, was formerly the director of the retail branch network at Co-operative Financial Services in London. Before that, he spent 10 years working for Lloyds Bank.
6am
Breakfast is something I have never eaten, unless someone is cooking me a full English breakfast. Coffee is as much as I can do to get myself out of bed and into the car for just after 6.30am. My 16-year-old son’s school is a 15-minute drive from our home in The Villa in Dubailand, and also very close to my office in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
7am
At the office, I allow myself at least two more cups of coffee and a catch up on what is happening in the newspapers, including The National. From about 8.30am onwards I start getting calls from the guys working for me with updates on sales performance, product development and customer issues.
9.30pm
The morning is normally made up of meetings. I am responsible for the retail bank, which is our small-business-plus-retail customers. I have got 13 people directly reporting to me, so most of them will be in touch every other day with updates or meetings.
10.30am
I try to get out at least every couple of days to visit other branches and offices to meet the staff, listen to how they are feeling, and find out what the customers are saying. I want to know what things we can do better. I would rather listen to the staff themselves as opposed to their seniors.
1pm
Coffee gets me through the morning with a cereal bar thrown in, then lunch is a sandwich at the desk. My wife tells me off regularly for not eating. Lunchtime is also my last coffee of the day, otherwise I drink too much of the stuff.
1.30pm
Currently, the afternoon involves meetings about a product we have just launched for our customers called Elite Banking. As well as other incentives, we are offering golf benefits, where they can play a round a month essentially for free. These meetings are where I get to talk about golf, think about golf and then wish I was playing golf, but regrettably don’t. The days of bankers meeting their clients for a midweek game of golf are long gone. This new product is aimed at our target segment, which is those with a salary in excess of Dh35,000 a month, who either currently enjoy or aspire to play more golf.
2.30pm
I speak to my head of wealth management, who has a team of about 100 relationship managers looking after our customers. He is meeting with his team, and then he and his senior staff are coming in to tell me what’s happening. We are getting feedback from the customers, the media and staff as to what they think of the new product. Numbers are looking really good and the feedback so far has been positive, but what might seem nice when you first get it may after a couple of months not seem quite as good, so we will keep on asking the right questions. You endeavour to get it bang-on but I do not believe any product is perfect. In the next 12 months, we will refine the product so that it reflects more what the customers want.
3pm
At the moment we are concentrating heavily on the budget, so I meet my finance team to work out what 2016 is looking like in terms of forecasting. We go through every product line, balance, fee and commission just to make sure that we know exactly what we are expecting. The lower oil price and those sorts of things are taken into account. We continue to invest heavily in digital banking, mobile, and online services, which more and more of our customers are using. [We ask] what services customers are going to want in this year that we did not provide last year. If the new iPhone is coming, what will it enable our customers to do, and are we ready for that? So it is looking at tech products, customer feedback and how staff are feeling, and trying to bring that all back to a number.
5.30pm
I try to play a game of tennis once a week at The Villa, then I will have dinner with my wife and son. Cooking is a case of all three of us getting involved – often the only time we all get together. We fire a barbecue up for grilled meat and fish with my wife’s salads she makes before I get home, and then we sit around the table and talk about the day.
8pm
My daughter’s just gone to university, so we Skype her once or twice a week. We walk the dog at 9.30pm around where we live, and I am in bed not long after 10pm.
business@thenational.ae
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