David Drumm is keen to be judged on his job performance, not his age, writes Siobhán Creaton.
Anglo Irish Bank's new chief, David Drumm, is one of the fresh-faced bunch of executives running corporate Ireland.
The 38-year-old accountant from Skerries, Co Dublin, came to prominence late last year just as 33-year-old Eugene Murtagh took over at Kingspan, Jim Barry (38) became chief executive of NTR, Patrick Kennedy (35) was recruited to the chief financial officer's role at Greencore and Cormac McCarthy (37) took charge at Anglo's rival, Ulster Bank. Drumm recalls a cartoon in this newspaper depicting Ireland's young bosses playing in a crèche. He says that many of the playmates who know each other enjoyed faxing it to each other.
Drumm is keen to be judged on his performance in the job rather than on his age, and is weary of the comparison that he is now the same age as Seán FitzPatrick was when he took over at Anglo more than two decades ago. "A lot has been made of that. It's a new and different world. It's a much stronger bank. It's a different era. Age isn't relevant."
Replacing someone who has driven the spectacular growth of this financial institution over 22 years is no easy challenge. FitzPatrick will cast a long shadow over the bank for some time to come, albeit from the chairman's office.
Drumm says FitzPatrick was quick to "throw the keys" to him, telling him to get on with the job. "Seán chose to hand it on. He wanted to see new energy and enthusiasm come into the job. He left that day and has been hands- off. The deal is that he is there when I need him," he says. "To have him as a non-executive director is a great benefit to the bank."
Drumm had no public profile before his elevation to the top job. To outsiders, he was a surprise choice. Within Anglo, however, colleagues were not that surprised. He was a rising star.
He trained as a chartered accountant at Deloitte and left the practice for a more diverse role at the Dundalk-based Enterprise Equity, a venture capital company established as part of the International Fund for Ireland to support businesses in the Border counties. His four years there taught him how to knock on doors, he says, and he oversaw investments in firms ranging from Monaghan Mushrooms to Moffett Engineering.
"I wanted to get back to work in Dublin," he says, explaining his decision to join the Bastow Charlton accountancy firm in 1993.
But his stay there was brief. "It was a mistake. I knew it wasn't for me," he said. "After a few months I applied for a manager's job at Anglo but they gave me the assistant manager's job. This meant a 40 per cent pay cut so I took a deep breath and got on board."
Anglo was a much smaller bank then and Drumm learned the ropes working on one of the teams lending money to customers. "They were tougher times. Anglo was very much the underdog. We were the street fighters. It was difficult to get to people," he recalls.
By 1997, he was running a team of lenders and was asked by FitzPatrick to be a scout for the bank in the US to assess opportunities there. "I spent about six months kicking the tyres, travelling to Chicago, New York and the west coast before we decided to set up shop in Boston," he says. "There was a gap in the market that we could fill and we were going there at what we considered to be the top of the market."
Drumm moved to Boston with his wife Lorraine and their two daughters and set about building the business.
Over the next five years Anglo muscled in on property deals in the Boston area. Drumm pays tribute to its first clients who proved to be the bank's greatest ambassadors in terms of generating referrals. Today, Anglo has a loan book worth around €2 billion in the US.
Drumm says that once the business was up and running he wanted to move home and broached the subject with FitzPatrick. "I wanted to come back for family reasons. Some people are convinced I came back to get the job," he says.
FitzPatrick agreed to his return and installed him in one of the key jobs in charge of the bank's Irish lending business, which accounts for about 40 per cent of its total lending.
Anglo is backing many high profile deals. It financed the Precinct consortium's purchase of the Gresham Hotel group and until this week it was supporting its proposed bid for the Jurys Doyle hotel group withdrawing when the terms became less attractive.
It was involved in Derek Quinlan's purchase of the Savoy Hotel group in London and was the lead bank in the Dundrum Town Centre.
FitzPatrick told the board he would step down at the age of 56 and a nomination committee had begun to trawl for his successor. "They interviewed all of the senior managers across the bank," says Drumm. "They canvassed their views on the attributes of a new CEO and the challenges facing them.
"Through that process they identified four candidates who were asked to accept the nomination," he explains.
Tiarnan O'Mahoney (45), FitzPatrick's number two and a director of the bank, was viewed as the front-runner. John Rowan (46), the head of Anglo's UK operations and also a member of the board, was another contender. Tom Browne (42), the head of its wealth management division who was appointed to the board during the selection process, was in third place. Drumm was the fourth candidate who would be considered for the job.
In the months before FitzPatrick's successor was appointed, the three directors were constantly mentioned as being in the running. Drumm's name only surfaced in the weeks before the announcement.
"The media decided it was between the three board members and obviously Tiarnan was the favourite but I was always a contender," he says.
Insiders say that, during the lengthy recruitment process, the four candidates were asked to nominate who they wanted to get the position in the event that they were unsuccessful. The three rivals are said to have each named Drumm as their preferred candidate, something that may have strengthened his hand.
The four were called to the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, in September to learn their fate and were told in the order they were interviewed. Drumm was last and the only one to get good news. "It wasn't a shock in the bank in the same way it was outside," he says.
In the months ahead, O'Mahoney, who had been earning a salary of €1.5 million and had a stake in the bank worth more than €11 million, left to start a new career.
"Of course the others were disappointed," Drumm says. "Tiarnan decided to move on and he left the bank on great terms. John and Tom have a huge role to play. They have very significant jobs. People get on with it. We are all part of a tight team. We are all close enough to work well. It's a business partnership."
And it's a lucrative partnership. Anglo has more millionaire employees per square foot of office space than any other Irish company. Staff hold more than €550 million of stock between them.
FitzPatrick was earning a salary of €2 million when he was chief executive. When he retired, he cashed in €28 million worth of Anglo shares and continues to hold a stake worth another €20 million.
There are limited opportunities to replicate these positions in the Irish economy.
Drumm has a stake of around €1.7 million in the bank and, with Anglo continuing to bring in record profits, he can expect to reap considerable financial rewards for his job.
"This is a place for anyone who wants a career. There is a culture for people to succeed in their career, and that includes the opportunity for people to become the CEO," he says. "This is my time. Down the road, I will have to leave it to someone else."
Factfile
Name: David Drumm.
Age: 38.
Family: Married to Lorraine; they have two daughters, Sarah (10) and Ellen (7).
Background: From Skerries, Co Dublin, he went to school with the Christian Brothers. He lives in nearby Malahide.
Hobbies: Plays golf and has recently adopted a regular fitness regime. He is a keen reader, favouring history and biographies.
Career: He trained as a chartered accountant and qualified with Deloitte before moving to Enterprise Equity, a venture capital company charged with supporting investments in businesses in the Border counties. He briefly returned to work as an accountant at Bastow Charleton but months later took an assistant manager's position at Anglo Irish Bank in 1993. He moved rapidly through the ranks and in 1997 went to Boston to set up a new banking operation. Five years later he returned to head the bank's lending operations and was appointed chief executive in February.
Why he is in the news: This is his first interview since taking over at the helm at the bank.
