Business Hub: BNZ chief executive Dan Huggins on grabbing opportunities amid Covid

For some people becoming chief executive of a major corporate in the middle of a global pandemic might seem a daunting task.

But Dan Huggins, who stepped into the top job at the Bank of New Zealand this month, sees it as an opportunity.

“When you think about these things you never expect you’re going to be taking over in the middle of a pandemic so certainly it wasn’t the plan.

“But with all of these big events globally there’s opportunity that comes out of those and I think supporting our customers when there’s great change – and we are seeing a lot of change in the way customers want to interact with the bank – that’s exciting.”

Huggins only joined the BNZ in March last year after returning from Australia having spent eight years at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

A Kiwi who grew up in Taranaki, Huggins’ return home was prompted by a desire to bring up his young sons in New Zealand.

“I’ve got two young boys – a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old – and we wanted them to know their grandparents and really be raised in New Zealand, so the plan was always to return home.

“The fact my 9-year-old had started supporting the Wallabies and singing the Australian national anthem, the time to come back was absolutely upon us.”

Huggins’ appointment is unusual in two ways – the fact that he is a Kiwi and that he came from a rival bank.

In the past the big four Australian-owned banks have appointed Australian chief executives to head up their New Zealand divisions, using it as a training ground for those executives before bringing the successful ones back into a higher-up role at the Australian parent.

But with the transtasman bubble closed and international travel made highly difficult in the pandemic world it has become much harder for chief executives to hop back and forthacross the ditch to visit family or maintain business relationships.

Huggins’ predecessor Angela Mentis, who is Australian, got trapped in Australia for much of last year running the BNZ from Sydney and had to undergo two stints in MIQ to come back to her job.

Whilst the bank has been clear this wasn’t the reason for her going back into a role at BNZ’s parent National Australia Bank it can’t have been easy being unable to pop back to visit family – as would have been available when she took on the job in 2018.

All four banks now have Kiwis in the top job. For the BNZ it’s the first time in 14 years it has had a home-grown chief executive.

Huggins shrugs off this shift at the BNZ.

“I think all of the previous CEOs have had the best interest of New Zealand at heart, but I don’t have to learn it, I grew up as a Kiwi.

“I came back because I love New Zealand and what New Zealand stands for and I want to do all I can with the BNZ to support New Zealand and help drive the country forward.”

Banking has changed dramatically under Covid as lockdowns have driven a much faster shift in digital usage while at the same time bringing forward branch closures.

In November last year BNZ announced it would close 38 branches, going against its promise not to close any more regional branches until 2022.

Asked if there could be more branch closures given the latest Delta outbreak Huggins said it would depend on customer demand.

“We will open branches in some places where demand goes up as we’ve done recently. In other places, depending on what happens with demand from customers for those locations, you might see some areas where we need to close things but it’ll depend on the demand from customers and then how we respond to that demand.”

Many businesses have also been calling on the Government to mandate vaccinations for workers so they don’t face legal issues over bringing in workplace mandates.

Huggins said it was taking an encouragement approach with its 5000 staff.

“Our position at the moment is one of really strongly encouraging people to get vaccinated rather than anything else.”

With such a large workforce Huggins said it had staff with views on all sides including those who did not want to work next to unvaccinated people.

“We’re a large workforce and we represent the views of everyone in the community so we’ve certainly had people who have spoken to us about that.

“We’ve had people similarly speaking to us on the other side around it being their choice to get vaccinated.”

Its parent company NAB has so far stopped short of mandating jabs in Australia despite Westpac and Bank of Queensland mandating jabs for staff over there.

Huggins said it would continue to work with the New Zealand Government on the vaccination issue.

“They have taken the view at the moment of where it needs to be, been mandated into some industries and not others, and we’ll continue to work closely with the Government on those things and support them. They clearly want us to be encouraging it across our workforce and we’re doing that.”

Covid has already dramatically shifted the work patterns of employees at the bank.

Earlier this year BNZ permanently cut its corporate office space by 30 per cent after a permanent shift to a hybrid working model where its staff will work either two or three days a week from home.

Branch staff across all the banks had to shift to more of a call centre role helping field customer inquiries both by phone and digitally.

Huggins admits that managing such a large remote team can be challenging when it comes to keeping up morale and staff connection.

“That’s certainly a challenge. I think we’ve been fortunate that the culture of the bank pre the pandemic was really strong so as you’ve come into that and people have started to work from home we’ve been able to rely on that strength of culture to keep the teams together, but it’s a real challenge and we’re really seeing that with our people.

“[It’s] the balance that everyone is having to try and make work. My wife said to me the other day that everyone’s in a slightly different boat but we’re all facing into a similar storm and I think we see that with our people, that everyone is facing into it slightly differently. Everyone’s got a different set of challenges.”

Huggins said it was working hard to ensure staff stay connected and taking a flexible approach to ensure its people were able to get the work/life balance right.

“[We’re] also acknowledging that during these challenging times for some people, they just won’t be able to get the same number of things done and that’s absolutely okay. Wellbeing becomes the key priority and focus at this point in time.”

When it comes to its customers and how they are coping with Auckland’s ongoing lockdown Huggins says the reactions are quite varied.

“It depends on the sector and the operations of the business. We’ve got some businesses who are doing quite well, in fact they’re struggling to find the people to grow, would like to bring more stock in and are finding the supply chains challenging.

“Then there’s people at the other end of the spectrum in hospitality or other small businesses that are that are just trying to get through these lockdowns and just come out the other end.”

Putting pressure on another front for customers is inflation spiking up, driving increases in lending rates for home loans, business and consumer loans.

Huggins said it was unclear at the moment how persistent inflation was going to be.

“Whether it’s going to be more of a transitory change over the coming quarters, or whether it’s permanent.”

But he said the bank had been preparing its customers for rising interest rates for some time.

“We’ve been assessing customers at above 6 per cent interest rates, when we approve loans. Similarly, when we look at businesses we’re looking at cash flow to make sure that people are able to manage their loans through the full cycle.

“From that perspective customers, I think, are well prepared from what we can see in their underlying cash flow positions. But, given that any rise in interest rates we know is challenging for people, we’re working closely with customers to help them manage through that and work out what’s best for them.”

For now Huggins sees the biggest challenge for the next six months as getting through Covid.

“Coming out of that and the wellbeing of our people, that’s a really challenging time for our people. And by people I mean both people at the BNZ and also our customers.

“That will be our primary focus over the next few months, supporting our customers [and] supporting colleagues at the bank as we come through what’s been a really challenging and will continue to be a really challenging time.”

Dan Huggins:

• Current role: BNZ chief executive
• Grew up: Hawera, Taranaki
• Educated:MBA, with distinction, from The Kellogg School of Management, and a Masters of Engineering Management from The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, at Northwestern University in the US. He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) with a major in accounting and finance, from the University of Auckland.
• Career: Began as a business analyst with McKinsey & Company in 2002, before moving to Fonterra to turn around RD1 (now Farm Source), joined ASB as operations manager in its call centre. Headed back to McKinsey in 2009 before joining Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2012 where he worked his way up from EM direct channels strategy to executive general manager home buying. Joined BNZ in March 2020 as executive, customer, products and services before becoming CEO in October 2021.
• Family: Married to Jess with two sons ages 9 and 7.
• Passions: Gardening and kayaking.
• What was the last book you read? Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with his 7-year-old.
• What was the last movie you saw? Raya and the Last Dragon and also admits to having got caught up in Squid Games. “I strongly don’t recommend that to people.”
• What was the last holiday you went on? A week on Waiheke when we were not under lockdown.

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