Jakob Thomsen, 33, is the chief executive of Saxo Bank Dubai. The Dane, who has lived in Dubai for five years, studied at Stanford and Copenhagen Business School and has worked at Saxo Bank for the past 13 years. He is married with a one-year-old daughter.
What are your favourite things to do on the weekend?
My life changed radically a year ago when my wife and I had our first child, Leonora. Before Leonora’s arrival we had a rather active social life, eating out frequently and attending various social events. With a relatively long working week and Leonora’s tight sleeping pattern, spending time home with her during the weekend is my No 1 priority, and I enjoy it immensely.
What do you consider to be your favourite hobby?
I started collecting contemporary art eight years ago. My collection consists of pieces from artists from all around the world, though a majority is Scandinavian. I enjoy keeping myself up to date on the art scene through books and the internet. I am also lucky that one of my closest friends is a world-leading art dealer, and he helps me to navigate this rather complex and vast world. I am yet to include a Middle Eastern artist, but I am impressed with what I have seen, and I am a big fan of Farhad Moshiri, among others. My wife and I also enjoy travelling, and we have a rule that we have to visit a new country every year from the main cities of Asia to countries such as Rwanda. It is something we intend to continue doing even as our family grows bigger. I strongly believe that to understand the world you need to experience it first-hand.
What can’t you live without?
My family, my closest friends, good quality food and exercise – I train with a trainer twice a week, and look forward to the temperature dropping and the tennis season starting again. Also my father used to own one of the best restaurants in Scandinavia, so food is not something we like to compromise on in my family.
What do you consider the secret to your success?
I started my career in Saxo Bank at an early age working almost full-time while finishing business school. This has helped me build up relevant experience, but it also gave me the opportunity to help build the bank to what is today. Back then we were focused on retail FX. Today, Saxo Bank is a multi-asset engine provider to big financial institutions and retail aggregators who have the brand, the capital and the distribution, but lack the technology. It’s been a long journey and I’m proud to have been part of it. To me, theory without practice doesn’t hold a lot of value but neither does effort without passion. I can honestly say that I have put in a significant amount of effort to get to where I am today, but I have also had fun and been passionate about my work in the process. I was raised to believe that I could achieve whatever I wanted so long as I committed fully and strive to achieve the best. That meant if I wanted to be a mechanic, the goal would be to work on Formula One.
What advice would you offer others starting out in your business?
Stay humble, always be constructive in your feedback and let your work and results do the talking. Keep a steep learning curve and ensure a high level of ethics at all times. Be honest – if you make mistakes acknowledge them, but learn from them and don’t repeat them. Dishonesty will not take you very far.
How do you achieve a work-life balance?
I prioritise. This means saying “no” to a lot of invitations. As babysitting for our daughter becomes more of an option to us, we do look forward to saying “yes” to invitations more than we do today. I recently became a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization’s [a networking organisation for chief executives] local chapter, and this is something my wife and I are looking forward to exploring.
How do you relax after the working day?
If the time is available, I like to watch documentaries. Like TV shows, the production value has improved significantly over the past few years, and they often offer unique stories and insights into the diversities of the world, may they be political, geographical or cultural.
If you weren’t chief executive of Saxo Bank Dubai what else would you be doing?
Saxo Bank has given me an opportunity to live out my entrepreneurial dreams and aspirations. I was given the opportunity which entailed a great deal of responsibility early on in my career, and encouragement to pursue my initiatives and ideas. This I have appreciated, and it is one of the reasons why I can celebrate 13 years at Saxo Bank despite my relatively young age. If my experience had been different, I would most likely have ended up at one of the global investment banks, or possibly trying it out on my own with a business venture of some sort. This would have been a very different experience, but I feel very lucky to have been part of the Saxo Bank journey. I was employee number 65 when I started. Today we have more than 1,500 employees spread around offices in 26 countries.
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
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