Meet Ash Malik, MD, GTO Corporate Technology India and Global Head Deutsche Bank AG -- A 1989 Kings College London Computer Science graduate, a certified chartered accountant (ACA) from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and an Associate Member of Corporate Treasurers. In his two-decade career, Malik has worn various hats like that of an Assistant Manager, KPMG UK; Monitoring and Investigations officer, UBS Investments Bank, UK; Vice President, JP Morgan Chase, with a lot of cross-functional experience in the organisation from 1996 to 2002. Later on, he joined DB and reached the top of the hierarchy
In a conversation with Corporate Citizen, Ash Malik spoke at length about the banking sector, his professional and personal life, while also giving tips to the younger generation
In the nineties, after graduating in computer science, I took a year off to travel across Europe. Later on, as I wanted to start my own business in delivering software, I realised that besides getting to know how to develop software, a good business background and sound knowledge of how to run a business are needed. Since I lacked both, I decided to get trained and then setting up my own business. So I did my chartered accountancy and spent four years training with KPMG, where I was auditing banks. However, there was a big boom in derivatives then, and the financial sector was exploding. So I too ended up working for banks.
That’s right, my advice to young students is, keep your options open all the time. Besides seeking knowledge, your business management knowledge and the technical know-how need to go hand-in-hand. That has helped me a lot in my career. You also need to have multiple skills. You may not be able to be jack of all trades but at least master of more than one.
Your attitude, aptitude and adaptability are the key features that we look at when we hire fresh recruits. If the attitude and temperament are right, technical skills can be taught.
We’re looking to recruit candidates in the area of finance, operations, human resource, compliance and risk functions, technology, business analysis and research.
The way I like to work is:
“Your attitude, aptitude and adaptability are the key features that we look at when we hire fresh recruits. If the attitude and temperament are right, technical skills can be taught”
I adjust myself to the competencies and experience of that leader. If there’s a leader who needs help I’ll provide that. If the leader has a lot of experience and can run the business efficiently and effectively, I let him have a free hand. I’m very flexible. Very rarely do I do micromanagement. Everybody has to be able to experiment, to be able to be able to do their mistakes and not be punished. What’s important is the integrity. As long as they do it with integrity, mistakes are acceptable and corrections can be done.
That’s my personal style... to empower people as much as you can and to keep touch points. I spend most of the time collaborating across the various groups. It’s important for people to be level with each other and share as much possible. Collaboration and mutually sharing credit, is what the culture in an organisation should be. I spend a lot of time building that culture; mentoring people, in the right values, beliefs and the right culture these days.
“You cannot be successful without hard work. You don’t have to be the best in what you do, but at the end of the day, you need to feel that you’ve given your best”
This is something that I worry about! From the technology perspective, what would be interesting for me is how, the big data, the visualization and the work flow pieces come together, because they are all part and parcel of the same package. Something has to happen in that region, because lots of technologies work independently, but they haven’t really come together and explored it. I think the ‘big data’, ‘visualization’ piece is going to be massive. That could be the next disruption in banking. Banks don’t use the cloud, they all have their data centres. In theory, the cloud providers can do it cheaper than our own data centres. So, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future.
I love sports. I love playing and watching football. I am a huge MAN-U fan. I am a season ticket holder to this day... probably for the last ten years. I enjoy kick boxing.I do it with my family.
I’m actually quite introverted by nature. So, I prefer spending time with my small number of friends and family. I love spending time with my kids and wife. I love reading; the genre varies, leadership, technical, functional, fiction but I’m always reading. I prefer the traditional hard bound books to e-books. Firstly, because they are more relaxing for my eyes, also I enjoy the whole cover thing and holding it, I enjoy that experience. Spending time with the family; even helping my children with their schoolwork is also very relaxing and rejuvenating for me.
Banking gives us the pulse of the society as a whole—if the banking sector is healthy, then the economy is healthy. If banks are in trouble, then everything is a mess and it gets very stressful for the world as a whole says Malik. Malik spoke about the banking sector, as a whole, while also throwing light on his bank.
“Firstly, we’re trying to simplify our businesses—having realised lately that you can’t do everything, with everyone in every country. So you see banks try to consolidate their businesses to the areas and products they deem profitable. This is largely because introducing a new product or location, means introducing complexity and incurring cost. The banks are struggling with their cost basis compared to,” he added. The DB cost-to-income ratio is about 80 per cent, which has to be get it down to between 60-65 per cent to be competitive with other banks. So there is a huge focus on simplification. “We need to be better capitalised. Capitalisation gives you an idea of how strong your balance sheet is. Historically, banks have traded and managed risk. When you have risky assets, it’s very volatile,” said Malik.
All banks are trying to reduce their risk-weighted assets and increase their Tier 1 capital, which is the safest capital. “We are trying to change the way the banks are run. The history of DB could make a very interesting case study. DB has become one of the top three investment banks after entering into the business of investment banking in a mere ten years—a feat no other institution has achieved. We were top three in every market that we chose to be. That is an incredible story,” noted Malik.
“We are reducing, flattening some of the governance structures, getting people who are personally accountable. Most banks are going through a similar trajectory, reducing their risk profile, investing heavily to improve their technology,” said Malik.
a) Regulators –Regulators have become really strict, insisting on lots of transparency and controls; every country across the world is imposing strict regulations; implementing them is making business very costly.
b) Digital Technology -- Thanks to the innovations in digital technology, there is a lot of new competition from hitherto unanticipated sections. Suddenly, they can create a bank within a year and they compete for the same clients that we compete for.
With the regulators wanting us to be more controlled, stable and predictable, and our end clients expecting better and faster services, we have to deal with various contradictions and conflict. As such, on the macro level, you’ll see a consolidation of the big banks. There’ll be fewer global and universal banks, but a lot of local and regional players. Since the digital world giants like Google and facebook won’t be getting into banking because of the regulatory functions, things will be better for us in the long run.
By Pranav Alat
