Mr Michael Buckley was about to begin a meeting with a client in Finland when AIB's chairman, Mr Lochlann Quinn, rang to say he had been selected as the next group chief executive. Mr Buckley expects the news won't sink in fully until he gets back to Dublin this weekend when he can celebrate with his family.
For almost two years, Mr Buckley has spent long hours travelling between Ireland, Poland, Singapore and the US as part of his role as a director of AIB group, with most of his time devoted to Poland. From June 2001, his travelling will be curtailed somewhat when he takes over the running of AIB from Mr Tom Mulcahy.
He says he will be glad to be home but will miss Poland. His decision to head to Eastern Europe in 1999 as managing director of the bank's Polish operations took many people by surprise.
Some interpreted it as a move to give him valuable experience of retail banking in preparation for the group chief executive position. But Mr Buckley says it was simply an opportunity he couldn't resist.
At that stage, the Polish government had just told AIB it was in contention to win a stake in the soon-to-be privatised Bank Zachodni. It already had secured a foothold in that market through its interest in Wielkopolski Bank Kredytowy (WBK) and together the two banks offered great potential for AIB.
"With the second bank coming on board I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to do something that I had never done before and get involved with a whole new business and a new market. I had been to Poland reasonably regularly but not frequently, and I was interested. It was a challenge to do something completely different," he explains.
"It was an opportunity to build something which, regardless of where I ended up in the bank, I could look back and say I definitely did something that was a bit distinctive."
It was also invaluable in terms of understanding AIB's international business, which now accounts for more than 50 per cent of its entire operations. The incoming group chief executive believes such experience is now essential for bank employees who aspire to senior management posts.
"I really felt that more people needed to get experience of the international business. I felt I had to show a bit of an example and I think my time here has been successful in those terms. People now understand that if you want to have a really good career in AIB, you need to spend time not just in the domestic business but abroad as well."
Even though Mr Buckley does manage to spend a fair amount of time in Dublin, in the past couple of years he has racked up enough air miles to travel the globe several times over. This has meant spending time away from his wife Anne and their three grown-up children. "That has been very tough on a personal level for me and for Anne. And while my days are very full while I am here, luckily she is a very independent person. I get home reasonably frequently though and I am not the only person out here in that position. Most of our staff have young families, which is much tougher."
Apart from a few essential words, Mr Buckley hasn't applied himself to conversation in Polish, although many of the bank's 40 staff there are becoming competent.
If he was going to be there for another three years, he says he would have made an effort to tackle the complex Polish language and says he will be genuinely sad to leave Poland next year.
"I will be quite upset to leave Poland. I know pretty well what I would like to do with this business if I was here for another two or three years. If the board hadn't made the decision it did, I would have been very happy to remain here, as the banking market is at a fascinating stage."
The pace of consolidation in the Polish banking market has accelerated to such an extent that AIB is in a process to merge its two banks a couple of years ahead of schedule. Bank Zachodni WBK, in which AIB will have a 70 per cent shareholding, will be the fifth biggest bank listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange next year.
Mr Buckley says the bank is committed to sustaining a dominant position in Poland. "In Poland, as far as banking is concerned, it's all about who is going to be the top four or five banks. Even in a market with a population of 40 million, there is only real long-term profit opportunity for the top four or five banks. It's now a question of who runs fastest while the Polish banking market develops to western levels, and that is why I regret having to take a step back."
In Singapore, AIB has acquired an option to buy a strategic interest in Keppel Tat Lee, which Mr Buckley says gives the bank a significant opportunity to evaluate that market. In the next 18 months it will have to decide whether to buy into Keppel Tat Lee and he says the bank is open-minded at this stage.
"We are very interested in Singapore but not committed, and whether we exercise that option will depend on what is happening in the rest of AIB group."
He also outlines AIB's long-term commitment to the US market, where it owns the Maryland-based All-first group. AIB is one of three European banks to have a foothold in that market, although some analysts now suggest that, unless the bank can achieve greater scale, it should sell up and look elsewhere.
He disagrees, saying the bank is making strong returns and has the potential to grow further. "I am going to have to put a lot of time into these things in the coming months but I believe we will be in the US in a very significant way in five years' time and I believe our shareholders will be happy with that."
