Romanian bankers, attractive for foreign banks

The latest regional promotion was that of Mihaela Bitu, who took over ING’s lending operations in 10 countries. What are Romanians’ strong points and why do they seem to be put to better use abroad?
Romanians are not the only ones migrating to managerial positions in the West, believes Bitu, 37, who, starting January 1, took over the position of regional head of general lending products for Central and Eastern Europe with ING Bank Netherlands.
“There are many people from Central and Eastern Europe taking such positions,” states Bitu, who admits, however, that there is something special about Romanians. “They have a lot of determination and enthusiasm, more than our colleagues from the West. We are smart and we’ve gained experience in the fields where we operate and thus become points of interest for central headquarters. In time, a new generation of managers has emerged in Romania, too, who can be useful in organisations’ countries of origin as well,” says Bitu.
“There’s no such thing as a Romanian banker. The Romanian banker is a product of international institutions on the market as there are no bankers trained in a domestic school of tradition. (…),” says Bitu. She believes there is always a nucleus of valuable people in a company, who cannot all fill managerial positions at one time. Thus, it is normal for some of them to switch to another organisation. Besides such situations, a specific feature of the domestic banking market is the employees’ excessive mobility between different institutions, which brings along salary increases.
As people working in banks tend to change their job once a year or every two years, 12 years with the same institution seem too long a period.
“I’ve always been head of several units,” Bitu says.
What is changing now that she took over the position of regional head of general lending products for Central and Eastern Europe? “I will focus on just one of the products I used to coordinate, but in a much bigger number of countries. I’ve narrowed down my area of activity, but I’ve expanded the geographical reach,” says Bitu, who is leaving for Amsterdam in a 3-year expatriation term, at the end of which she says she plans to return to Romania.
She has already visited 4 of the offices in the 10 countries she has been coordinating starting January 1. The most important markets in terms of lending are the ones ING is focusing in the region, namely Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.