Interview with David Nish

Getting to know David Nish

David Nish became Standard Life's Chief Executive at the beginning of 2010 having previously been Group Finance Director since November 2006.

Financial journalist, Simon Challis, speaks to David about the events of last year, his new role as Chief Executive and his vision for the future of Standard Life.

Born:

5 May 1960

Qualifications:

Bachelor of Accountancy (Glasgow University) and Chartered Accountant (ICAS).

Career stepping stones:

David started his career at Price Waterhouse, where he qualified as a chartered accountant and became a full equity partner in 1993, working on a portfolio of substantial audit assignments, including several significant plcs. He later moved to Scottish Power plc, where he served as Finance Director and in 2005 he was appointed Executive Director, Infrastructure Division.

At Standard Life:

David joined as Group Finance Director in November 2006 and was appointed Chief Executive at the end of 2009, following an extensive global search for a successor to Sir Sandy Crombie.

Non-executive roles:

Thus plc 2001-2002, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Society Limited 2002-2008, and Northern Foods plc 2005.

Home life:

Married with two children, David lives near Glasgow and enjoys trekking.

The interview

To view each of David's answers, click the questions below.

Q - What would you say has been your first priority as Chief Executive?

A - It's to accelerate the Group's growth. We have a great opportunity to do this by focusing on our customer's needs, and developing propositions that meet them. We have done a lot of work to understand better what our customers need from us, which has significantly influenced our strategies.

We also need to increase the metabolic rate of the organisation - improving our speed to market. We need to become more driven, more innovative and ensure we continue to deliver value for our customers and shareholders.
Q - Let's look back for a moment, what's the past year been like for Standard Life?

A - Overall, Standard Life performed well financially. We ended the year in a strong capital position, despite the falling markets, so we now have a strong foundation from which to invest in the future. We've also made a good profit for the year, we've delivered for our customers and we're ahead of our efficiency target.

From the beginning of 2009, we focused on what we could control so we chose to concentrate on how we performed for our customers, developed our product range and focused on our costs and efficiency targets.

The start of this year so far has been pretty strong for us. Despite the ongoing uncertainty, it does now appear that markets have turned the corner. We're optimistic about the future and have significantly picked up our investment programme, which is probably the largest in Standard Life's recent history.
Q - What is your vision for the Group?

A - I see us as a long-term savings and investments business - we give people the opportunity to put money aside for their future.

The drivers of our business are, firstly, our brand: as a financial services company the importance of having a strong and trusted brand cannot be underestimated.

The second is technology. In five years' time we should assume that the vast bulk of our business will come through a digital platform.

Thirdly, we must use our greater customer insight to improve our propositions and how we get to access and serve our customers.

We will invest further in the corporate market, particularly in the UK and Canada. Our corporate relationships will help to shape our approach to retail customers because employees are potential individual retail customers.

We will also continue to invest to build Standard Life Investments as a truly global, high-value investment manager. It has had a lot of success recently in absolute return products, which have already attracted £2 billion in assets. We see great potential for these products in the future, both for institutional and retail clients.

Finally, we will exploit the value in our joint ventures in India and China. Both of these markets present us with exciting opportunities.

Overall, we have a great opportunity to generate good growth in the years ahead.
Q - What's the future for the savings industry and for Standard Life?

A - We see the future being dominated by online platforms. Both retail and corporate customers will use them to access a range of products or propositions and to manage their financial affairs in one place.

Our purchase of Vebnet in September 2008 has helped fundamentally change our organisation. It's the UK leader in flexible benefits, delivered primarily through web-based platforms, with a blue-chip client base. We are integrating Vebnet's ideas into our broader propositions.

I think organisations should continually think about how they reinvent themselves. We need to be more nimble, quick and decisive. In the past our products have been complex, but that does not necessarily help us serve our customers well.
Q - Will you be shifting Standard Life's emphasis to overseas growth?

A - Our focus for the next few years will be on the markets in which we are already strong. If I look at our three main businesses - UK, Canada and Standard Life Investments - they all have good opportunities.

I think the UK is a great market in which to be a leading player. Most people have not saved enough for their retirement, so there's a lot more they need to do to have an adequate pension.
Q - What do you think 2010 will hold for the UK economy?

A - A dominant factor will be the general election, and I hope the result will bring clarity, not ambiguity.

In discussions with politicians from both the main parties, we've called for them to simplify matters in long-term savings. People are confused about how much they can invest and how to be tax efficient. People who are confused tend not to act and the government must give confidence to people to invest for the long-term.

Savings cannot become a political football. The parties must realise they need to set down a consistent, long-term strate
Q - How will you go about meeting the different needs of Standard Life's shareholders, customers and employees?

A - The needs of shareholders, customers and employees aren't so different. Ultimately each look to us to deliver a return on the investment they have made in our company.

Our shareholders are looking for us to deliver value and we believe we can do this by being a truly customer-focused long-term savings and investments business. We need to acquire and retain valuable customers. By fully understanding our customers and working to anticipate their needs we will continue to create the type of propositions they want.

And core to our success are our people. We recognise that engaged employees deliver a better customer experience. Attracting, retaining and developing talent is core to our strategy.

There needs to be a closer link between delivering against our strategy and incentivising our staff for their efforts. It's something the Group has not been as strong on as it could be - we've tended to operate as individual businesses rather than pulling together across the organisation.
Q - Does Corporate Responsibility (CR) remain at the heart of Standard Life now it is a publicly listed company?

A - Absolutely. We have a responsibility as an investor, employer and corporate citizen. You could argue that it is even more important now, as we are accountable to our shareholders. For example, reducing our carbon footprint dramatically will not only help the environment but if we use less paper and consume less energy we will be able to reinvest those benefits back into our business.

Although we take our environmental responsibilities seriously, corporate responsibility is about more than that. It's about listening to our customers' needs and building trust with them, investing customers' money responsibly, acting with integrity, and engaging our people in Standard Life.

With £177.6bn of assets under administration comes responsibility. Where we can, we use our influence to encourage best practice in the companies we invest in. We make sure we carry out our investment business with integrity and to the highest ethical standards.

Corporate responsibility is at the heart of what we do and we're working to develop our approach in 2010 so it is completely embedded within our business.
Q - So what CR initiatives have you got underway?

A - There are a number of projects ongoing at the moment. One example that comes to mind is our financial educational programme called On the Money. This teaches young children the importance of money through literacy and drama.

We're also about to launch the Standard Life Charitable Trust, which will support projects in the communities where we work. We have secured initial funding of £4m to kick-off this process.