ABN Amro's ebullient new chief financial officer was known by colleagues at the Dutch central bank as "Turbo Tommy" for the speed with which he got things done. "His greatest strength is his social intelligence," says a senior central banker. "He's also always open to new concepts and new approaches. If he has a weakness, it is that when he delegates, it is often to himself."
Tommy de Swaan had been in charge of banking and market supervision at the central bank since 1991, a board member for 13 years, and an employee there since university. Still only 52, he decided it was time to do something different. "My position at the central bank obviously did not allow me to solicit actively for a position in commercial banking," he says. "I was approached."
One of five children, he was born in Amsterdam in 1946. His parents named him after the nickname for the Canadian and British troops who liberated the Netherlands at the end of World War II. His parents had spent the war in hiding and were among only 35,000 members of the Dutch Jewish community to survive the Holocaust (out of an original 105,000).
Towards the end of an economics degree at the University of Amsterdam, De Swaan did a thesis supervised by a professor in banking theory and macroeconomics who was also a member of the governing board of the central bank. The professor suggested he apply. "There was, let's say, a strong suggestion that I would be accepted," De Swaan recalls.
He started as a junior economist in the foreign-exchange department two or three months after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system - which meant that dollars were no longer convertible into gold. He was soon put in charge of investing the central bank's foreign exchange reserves, a job that came to include trading the investments as well. "Along with others, the Dutch central bank developed quite sophisticated methods of investing its foreign-currency reserves," he says. "I just happened to have the luck to be in the right place at the right time."
By 1978 he was a managing director of the foreign department and in 1983 became a deputy executive director of the central bank. He became an executive director in 1986, originally in charge of payment systems, automation, human resources, and banknote printing. In 1991 he took charge of banking and market supervision. "I was blessed with a period of extremely well-performing banks in the Netherlands," he says.
Internationally, meanwhile, De Swaan became chairman of the Joint Forum on the Supervision of Financial Conglomerates, and also chairman of the Basle Committee, at a time when its responsibilities were extending very rapidly outside the G10 countries. "Encouraging the establishment of good supervisory systems in emerging markets was one of my most important tasks," he says, "and I think one of the most important issues ever taken up by the Basle Committee."
During this period, De Swaan also chaired the subcommittee for banking supervision of the European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt, and was a member of the committee advising the European Commission in Brussels on banking legislation and directives. But although he has now resigned from these positions, he has certainly not relinquished his "very strong feelings pro the euro". He says: "The Dutch economy and consequently the banks have always been very internationally oriented. ABN Amro has been preparing for the euro for a very long time - we see a great future and great possibilities."
At ABN Amro, besides his responsibilities as chief financial officer, De Swaan has assumed charge of risk management. "We are present in 75 countries, including some whose economies haven't performed so well in recent years," he says. "But in general I think the mechanisms that we use to measure credit and market and cross-border risk are very advanced and working well. Over the past two years we've been developing a sophisticated value-at-risk model to measure cross-border risk and are constantly looking at new techniques of assessing the risks in the portfolio."
Away from banking, De Swaan is chairman of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, and an active member of the Contact Group World War II. The group was established to examine whether the property stolen from Dutch Jews during the war was returned to them in a structured, legal and humanitarian way. He also plays the piano, is chairman of the Royal Dutch Opera, and is often involved in initiatives to promote the cultural well-being of his beloved home city of Amsterdam. He was a keen field hockey player until a couple of years ago. Philip Eade