Learning management lessons from a true professional is a gift!

The touch of a super-EXECUTIVE, Mr Aras, the bank builder!

To be at the top of the corporate ladder that you had built step by step.

I will tell you a story about a banker who built not only his career ladder to the top but a bank from scratch.

I am not a banker. I have never acted one. I have spent all my corporate career in investment management, playing many roles involving executive positions in the hierarchy of investment banks. I would call myself a “broker” if I had to label it in the best case.

When you are a banker, you mainly deal with people who are in need of money. This may be for their corporate ventures or personal interest. And you earn the interest margin — the difference between your sales and funding of the “money.” Yes, it is a MONEY business!

My career path was a service to people who had money in many creative ways — called capital markets.

I will not and can not talk about BANKING in a deep sense. However, if you want to hear and learn from a true leader at the top of the banking ladder, I would highly recommend listening to Mr Omer Aras, chairman of the QNBFinansbank in Turkey.

Mr Aras has just published a book, “Experiences.” A book about banking, leadership and being an executive. Mr Aras is a living example of a top-level banking EXECUTIVE. He has a marvellous story and is a foundation pillar of one of the most successful bank startups in the global capital markets. FINANSBANK: the story of a startup seeded with 8 million dollars and sold by 5.5 billion in 19 years.

Until now, we have listened to the success story of FINANSBANK from the lens of a remarkable entrepreneur, Mr Husnu Ozeyin. He is the founder of the venture. The person who had the majority of the shares. The one who had cashed out as a super-rich banker. And it was super sexy. What a script.

Today, we have a chance to listen to another version. This time the story is amplified with a super-EXECUTIVE touch. Now it is juicier, more motivating and more accessible for us. And there is much more to learn!

How may a successful academic person happen to be a banker and start one and lead the bank under three owners and many bosses up until now — with absolute growth in any single era of Finansbank?

If you are familiar with Warren Buffet, who shouldn’t be, you may also have heard about Charlie Munger, his all-time support under his capital kingdom.

Even Buffetology is not one-sided.

Suppose you listen to the story of Finansbank as a one-sided entrepreneurship success of Mr Husnu Ozeyin. In that case, you may miss the collective, team-builder, innovative and leadership parts that made the SPIRIT of interdependent culture created by Mr Omer Aras. A proper flag carrier of meritocracy and governance. Mr Aras, the builder!

I enjoyed every sentence of the book, not because I know the storyteller in person, but because I admire his EXECUTIVE skills. These skills will help us understand 20th-century hierarchal organisations and highlight the relevant management tools. Most of them are still valid in the corporate world and an executive’s life.

However, the striking part of the book is about CREATING the FUTURE and adopting the change. Daring to be different! A transformation story.

Leadership to INNOVATION…

Enpara.com — Design Studio — QNBeyod

These are bold and courageous initiatives in an industry where change is inevitable.

Banking will change its form.

A bank is like a hammer if you are a banker. You start to see everything as a nail. Banking is no longer a vanilla nailing job when you zoom out. Consumer needs are changing, and the organisation that may adapt to this change and discover the needs of people will lead off. In other words, you will need to enlarge your toolbox to solve people’s financial problems.

• The first disruption will be in personal banking.
• Corporate banking next.
• Investment banking will follow.

I had been there, and I could feel it. But we need more…

I read the book

I liked it a lot.

And I hope Mr Aras will keep on walking his career and enlighten us with his new perspectives for 21st-century banking and management practices — why not on Linkedin articles this time?