Voice-over: This is Leaders in Finance, a podcast where we find out more about the people behind a successful career. We speak with the leaders of today and tomorrow to discuss their motivations, their organizations, and their personal lives. Why? Because the financial sector could use a little more honest conversation. Our guest this episode leads a bank with over 18 million active customers, more than 70% of the population of Ukraine.
Mikael: We have around 7,400 employees, more or less all of them are hired and working in Ukraine.
Voice-over: Running a bank is running a bank. But what if that country is at war?
Mikael: When the recruiter called me the first time, I said, are you crazy? Of course I will not do it.
Voice-over: And yet he said yes.
Mikael: I’ve been sitting in the shelter and feeling the smell of fire and the smell of gunpowder.
Voice-over: Even during this conversation, the war couldn’t be kept out.
Mikael: We had an alarm here just a few minutes ago, but now I start to hear that the defence is activated. So I hear a lot of shooting. So I think actually we need to take three minutes and move down to the shelter.
Voice-over: Our guest this episode is Mikael Björknert, CEO of PrivatBank in Ukraine. Your host is Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Welcome to a new episode of the Leaders in Finance podcast. Thank you for tuning in. This week we’re joined by our guest Mikael Björknert, the Chief Executive Officer at PrivatBank in Ukraine. Welcome, Mikael. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me and to Leaders in Finance.
Before we begin, we would like to thank our partners for their ongoing support. These are EY, the global consulting firm, Mogelijk Real Estate Finance, and Lepaya. Thanks to our partners for making this possible.
As a good tradition, I’ve always done this with every CEO. I’ll start by spelling the name of my guest, which is in this case Mikael Björknert. Before we get started with the questions, I’d like to do a short introduction about you, Mikael.
You’re the CEO of PrivatBank, as I said, since the 20th of January 2025. You now lead Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, serving more than 18 million active customers, with over 70% of Ukrainians using your services. Mikael Björknert brings more than 25 years of experience in the financial sector.
Before taking the helm at PrivatBank in Kyiv, he held several senior leadership positions at Swedbank in Sweden, including Head of Swedish Banking, where he was responsible for one of the bank’s core business areas. He has also served as Chairman of Bankgirot, if I pronounced it correctly, probably not, and as a board member of Nasdaq in Sweden. Mikael Björknert holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Uppsala University.
He’s 59 years old, lives in Kyiv, and is married with two children. That is a short introduction about you.
When I was preparing for this interview, the number one question that came to mind all the time was: how is it, and is it at all possible to explain to someone who lives in peace, what it is like to be the CEO of the largest bank in a war-torn country? Is it possible to explain it to me at all?
Mikael: No, but a CEO job is a CEO job, so you have to run the bank, regardless of whether you’re in a country at war or in a country at peace. But for me, it was very natural to step into this role after considering it for a while, honestly.
The reason for that was that I’ve had an extremely fortunate career, both in Swedbank for 15 years, but earlier in SEB, also a well-known large bank in the Nordics, as well as all these board assignments you were alluding to. I have learned so much during my entire career. And as you said, I’m almost 60.
When I got the question, I thought that maybe it was time to give something back a little bit. I have so much experience, and this is probably experience that I can share in this country, for the use of the bank, but also for the country and society at large. So that was actually why I wanted to come here, and why I said yes to this phenomenal challenge.
Jeroen: I mean, obviously, it was a hard decision, but did you take a long time to think about it and to speak with the people closest to you? Because it also impacts them, right? It’s not only impacting you.
Mikael: Yeah, of course. Honestly, when the recruiter called me the first time, I said: are you crazy? Of course I will not do it.
But then he called again, and he connected me very quickly and said: can’t you talk to the chairman? And when I started to talk to different people, I became curious. So, of course, it was a journey to do that.
That was the professional part. And of course, the private part is that when you are as old as I am, the kids have flown out and live in different places. So it’s me and my wife. We had a long discussion, but also with the kids, of course, because they are worried about their father moving into a country like this.
But all were extremely supportive after a while, because we believe that this is good not only for me and for the family, but also for keeping up Ukraine as a country, because that is important for all of us.
And honestly, I think my kids and my wife, who are living in Sweden, feel that the war is not so far away. So if we can do something to support Ukraine, and to help them continue the resistance towards Russia, it is probably something we should do. So full support from home.
Jeroen: Do you feel Ukrainian?
Mikael: You become, of course, in a way, much more involved in society here, because you are part of society. You’re not an expat here. You are part of society.
From that perspective, you are involved in the discussion around everything we intend to do in this country, because this is not only a bank. This is also politics, defence, and a lot of other things.
From a CEO perspective, when I worked in very senior positions in Sweden, banking was one thing and the society around it was quite stable. There were not so many changes year by year. But here you have changes, I would say, every day, which is very different.
So banking is part of your focus, but also society, politics, and all the emergency situations are part of your job. That puts you on your toes in a different way than when you’re leading institutions in Sweden.
Jeroen: We’ll definitely come back to your journey, what ultimately brought you here, and also your relationship with Ukraine, or what you already had before. But before we do, I’d love to speak about PrivatBank and learn more. Because, as I mentioned in my introduction, it’s the largest bank in Ukraine.
Maybe you can tell me a lot more. The way I’d like to structure it is to use stakeholders. And as a Swede, you’re very much used to the stakeholder model.
So maybe we can start with colleagues as a stakeholder. How many people work in your bank? And where are they? And roughly speaking, what are their occupations?
Mikael: We have around 7,400 employees in the bank, and more or less all of them are hired and working in Ukraine. But of course, we have allowed people to relocate, also to other countries. But that is the employee base we have.
They are spread all over Ukraine. So we are not a bank that is strong only in the west or east; we are strong across the whole of Ukraine. We have branch offices spread out close to the border and close to the front.
We have a rule that 40 kilometres from the front, we can have a branch office open. But of course, we have different precautions for that.
Then we have a call centre, which is very different from normal European ones, because this one is 100% distributed. No one is sitting in the same facility.
And then we have all the supporting functions, like operations, IT, and others. That is also, to some extent, spread out, even if they are concentrated in a couple of buildings in Kyiv or Dnipro, mostly where we had our origin, but also in other large cities like Lviv, where we have facilities where we can meet. But a lot of people are working remotely.
Jeroen: I read that you have, but please correct me if I’m wrong, over 1,000 branches, right?
Mikael: Yes, 1,050 branches, of which 500 are branches that we call power banking branches, so they can never be closed. They need to have generators, batteries, Starlink, fibre, and all the things that are necessary. Regardless of the challenge, they need to be open.
Of course, we close them during air alarms for the protection of our customers and our employees, but otherwise, they can’t be closed.
And then, of course, with the remaining 550 branches, we try to equip as many as possible with these tools I’ve mentioned as well, so we try to keep all of them open. But according to regulations, 500 of them need to be open all the time.
Jeroen: Because it was a little counterintuitive to me. I thought: there is a war, everybody goes online, and you have no branches anymore. Everything is going to be done online. But that’s clearly not the case.
Mikael: No, and it’s important because when the war started, these types of martial laws came in. And when those came in, the state also issued a strategy or direction for the state-owned banks, which we are, stating that we need to be operational in the entire country. We need to be open, and we need to facilitate capital to the market, and so on.
So there are a couple of principles that we need to follow. And honestly, I think we should be very proud of keeping the branches open. We haven’t closed any branches, more or less, during the war, except when they are in occupation. Then, of course, we close them.
But otherwise, it is a sign. It is a sign for the people in Ukraine that we are there, that we stand with them, and that we are actually staying open.
One example of that is in Kyiv now during the winter, when it was horribly cold here. It was minus 20 for three, three and a half weeks. At the same time, the Russians were bombing all the heating facilities and electricity facilities. So there was blackout, and there was no warmth in the homes, especially on the left bank of Kyiv.
Then we actually said: let’s open up our branches on Saturdays and Sundays, so people can come in and get warm, have a cup of tea, and recharge their mobile phones.
So this is different from being responsible for a bank in Sweden or in the Netherlands. I think there would be a long discussion with the union before you could have a branch open on a Sunday. But here we just open it up, because that feels natural. That is what we have to do to keep up respect for all the citizens, in this case in Kyiv.
Jeroen: One more question on colleagues as a stakeholder. Because I read there have been people dying in your company as well, right? Your colleagues, actually. That is intense. So how do you deal with that as a CEO?
Mikael: Most of our colleagues who are dying are conscripted. They are in the army and they are servicemen there. What we try to do is support them when they become conscripted, and we try to keep contact with them while they are conscripted.
And of course, when they are released and become veterans — we have 250 veterans who have left the war — we would like to reintegrate them into the bank again, into different types of roles. That is important for us to do.
Then we support them in the way we can. This is moral support, but we also support them financially. For instance, we pay salaries to our servicemen, even if they also get a salary from the military, because we want to show that we stand behind them. And it is also a little bit more costly for them, so they can send money back to their families.
If we have them, as you alluded to, dying, unfortunately, we support the families of those employees. We try to take care of the children until they are 18. We can also help with other types of facilities from the foundations we have created. So that is one way of doing it.
The other way is that we need to show respect within the organization. So we have introduced a minute of silence every morning at nine o’clock. Regardless of whether we are in a committee, a meeting, or whatever it is, the clock starts ticking in the corridor and everyone rises. Then we have a minute of silence.
That is a way for us to show respect, but it is also a way for us to take a minute to think through why we are here. What are we supporting? How can we do it in a better way than we have done it? So it’s a little bit different.
Jeroen: That’s impressive. Thanks for sharing. And is this one minute of silence something that is particularly done in your bank, or is this done across the country?
Mikael: It is spread out across the country, but we were one of the financial institutions that introduced this as a mandatory part. We don’t need to call it mandatory, because when we started to do it, everyone wanted to be part of it. But we have that as a rule here.
Voice-over: This is Leaders in Finance with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Customers as a stakeholder: can you share what kind of customers you have? You have the retail bank, SMEs, etc. Who are you serving?
Mikael: We have been extremely good in the retail segment, meaning 18 million-plus private individuals, of course spread out. That is more than half of the population in Ukraine. And then we have almost 900,000 small businesses, entrepreneurs, or small legal entities.
Of course, that is also the vast majority of those in the country. So that is what we have been good at all the time. We have built a retail bank that has facilitated it.
But in the last two, two and a half years, we have started to say that if we should be a good bank in the recovery of Ukraine, we also need to move into the corporate sector. So that is what we have done and where we have started to gain a position. We are moving from being a retail bank to a universal bank.
That is because when we rebuild this country after the war, there will be investments of $800 billion, according to calculations. Who knows? But it is an awful lot of money that needs to be invested. And as the largest bank, we also need to take responsibility for being utilised as a channel for all these funds coming into the country.
Therefore, we also need to have the contact, the facilities, and the knowledge about the corporate sector. So we are building this deliberately, because we have a very good international reputation among the IFIs. We have the most facilities among Ukrainian banks for EIB, IFC, EBRD, BGK from Poland, and so on.
So they trust us, and we would like to continue to build the relationship with them and with all sectors in Ukraine.
Jeroen: And in my words, when this horrible war at some point will end, you will play a vital role in coordinating all the funds with the different international organisations to rebuild Ukraine.
Mikael: Yes, correct. And now, honestly, it starts. We had an alarm here just a few minutes ago, but now I start to hear that the defence is activated. So I hear a lot of shooting. I think actually we need to take three minutes and move down to the shelter and continue.
Jeroen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we stop now?
Mikael: Yes, we stop now and resume in five minutes.
Jeroen: Good luck. Thank you.
Mikael: All right.
Voice-over: Thank you. This is the Leaders in Finance podcast with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Thanks, Mikael, for continuing the conversation. I think you’re in a different environment now, right? The background is different.
Mikael: Yes, we’re in the shelter area, but we have a specific room here where we can continue a little bit undisturbed. But right now we have a lot of people in the shelter as well.
Jeroen: Well, thank you so much for making it possible to continue the conversation. That makes it even more tangible for me. As I said in my introduction question, it’s hard to imagine at all how you operate, but this makes it all extremely tangible.
So we left off when we were discussing the different stakeholders of PrivatBank, and we were with customers as a stakeholder. I wanted to ask you: I’m a former banker. I’ve been lending money to SMEs. One of the basic rules is that, at some point, you want the money back. How does that work in a country that is at war?
Mikael: It’s surprisingly good, honestly. What we have done is that we have an NPL portfolio for what happened during the previous owners and what has happened since we restarted the bank nine years ago.
If you take the NPL from when we restarted the bank and disregard all these bad debts connected to the former owners, we are around 3.3% NPL, which is, I would say, extremely good for the total bank. And it’s even less, honestly, on the business side than on the private side.
Then, if you add on the NPL from the former owners, we are up at around 14%. But that is something we are taking step by step. It is all provisioned for, but you need to have certain wins in the court system before you can derecognise them in the balance sheet.
Jeroen: I’ll come to the stakeholder owner in a minute. But one more thing. So 3.3% non-performing loans seems extremely low in this environment. Does that mean that your customers are extremely resilient and apparently also feel obliged to pay back?
Mikael: Yeah, I think that we have high payment morale. I didn’t believe that when I arrived here, but it is so.
When we have mostly war damages, customers call in in the morning and say: unfortunately, my warehouse, factory, or whatever it is, was hit during the night. They say: give us a couple of days. That is the normal sentence.
Then they call back a couple of days later and say: yes, we have fought through this, and we will invest again. But can you give us some type of amortisation holiday during the year? And eventually, can you contribute with 30% of our own new investment, so we can rebuild it, and then something more?
But the entrepreneurs here, the ones who own the companies, very much want to continue, because if they don’t continue, the country is dying. So it is very much the spirit of Ukraine right now. We are here to win this war, and that is what everyone is fighting for.
On the private side, it is not as lending-heavy as in other places. It is more short-term, connected to credit cards and short-term lending. The mortgage market is not working here yet. So we don’t have these enormous sums.
But even this short-term lending, which from time to time can be a problem in countries in Europe, is still of very, very good quality.
I think why we have such good quality is that we have the knowledge of the data of half the population, or more than half the population. So of course, we can build very good models and see which customers are the ones who will pay back and which are not, and be a little bit cautious there.
Jeroen: If you get a loan application from a small business close to the frontline, how do you assess a loan like that? I’m just trying to envision how that works.
Mikael: First of all, I need to mention that this bank is more digital than any bank. And I come from the Nordics, as you know, so we were quite digital there. But this bank has everything in the cloud.
We moved everything to the cloud when the full-scale invasion came, because we were afraid that the data centres would be captured by the Russians. From that perspective, we moved everything to the cloud in 45 days. The regulator said: yes, do it. And of course, that is a prerequisite that does not exist in Europe, because regulators there are still hesitating.
But we have had all our data in the cloud for four years. And of course, that has given us the possibility to work with data in a different model, to work with machine learning, with AI-generated models, and now AI agent models, in a different way than most banks I have looked into.
From that perspective, we utilise all this data in creating models. So we take all decisions on private customers and most decisions on entrepreneurs and small businesses by algorithm, based on knowledge.
When we come closer to the front, and the risk of war damages increases, then we usually do those loans together with one of the international IFIs, like EBRD, EIB, or IFC, where we have risk-sharing programmes.
The state also has risk-sharing programmes, but now they are trying to take them down a little bit, while the international IFIs are ramping up. So usually we take 60-40 or 40-60 of a credit like that. That is how we keep down the risk a little bit.
Because for us, it is important, and for the IFIs it is also important, to continue to facilitate credit even to those areas close to the front.
Jeroen: This external, massive shock of the war actually means that you are more digitalised and more data-driven than you were before. And would you also say you’re more digitalised and data-driven than most banks in Western Europe, Sweden, or anywhere else?
Mikael: Yeah, I honestly think that we have two things. One is that Ukrainian engineers are good. It is a population that is extremely educated and competent.
I think we have outsourced a lot of data and IT to Ukraine before. They are skilful, and from this skilfulness, when you combine it with moving the prerequisite of your foundation to the cloud, that has been an extremely good combination for excellent digitalisation and the utilisation of AI.
So I think we have 190 AI cases in production. And we have another pipeline this year, which will end up with around 420 if we allow all of those. I don’t know if we’ll do that, but let’s say 300 or 400 cases.
So we are at a very, very good level. The digitalisation in society is, of course, high. And to some extent, people are using the digital tools in the same way as in Europe. The frequency is equally high, and all the connections to the card systems and all of those things are similar.
But what we see here is that we still have a generation of Ukrainians who don’t come into this. And that’s also why we have quite a lot of cards.
If you take our two countries, 40 years ago, more or less everyone had a home PC and started to pay bills. That didn’t happen here. So here we have the new generations who adapt directly to the mobile phone. But we also have a generation that is a little bit larger than the one in Europe, who don’t come into this and are still very traditional in their banking ways.
So we have to live in two different worlds at the same time.
Jeroen: The other stakeholder — I don’t even know if we can call it a stakeholder — but ultimately, you’re dealing with Russia in some way or another all the time, given that it’s your enemy. How do you stay safe, also digitally safe? I mean, we just learned during this interview how to stay physically safe, right? You go to the place where you are now. How do you stay digitally safe? Because if I were Russia, one of the first things I’d like to hit is your bank.
Mikael: Yeah. But first of all, we moved the data centres from on-premise to the cloud. And then, of course, they would have to bomb some type of data centre in Munich or somewhere to hit us. So that is one risk we’re taking away.
But of course, you are always threatened by cyber. I was at the International Kyiv Cyber Conference last week, and I was actually on the panel together with the heads of the NATO, European, and Ukrainian cyber centres. We discussed this back and forth.
We have had 1.6 million attempts since the war started.
Jeroen: 1.6 million attacks?
Mikael: Yes. And still, they haven’t succeeded. Knock on wood here. Of course, we have all of those DDoS attacks.
And last year, in 2025, we had an interruption or a stop in our production for 20 minutes. That’s all. So we live under this, and we invest heavily in this.
But of course, you are also helped by having the data in the cloud. These large providers — and we are multi-cloud now, not just in one cloud — are extremely good in cybersecurity as well. So you are helped by it. And then you combine it with your own knowledge and skill, and invest heavily.
So far, so good.
Jeroen: Fingers crossed. As a stakeholder, the state: you’re ultimately owned by the state. You already alluded to it. You said that at some point you want to, or you will, be privatised again, but that will be after the war. How is the relationship with the government? It must be really close, is my assumption, but maybe I’m wrong.
Mikael: No, but of course, we are a bank that they would like to continue to be strong. For instance, in 2025, we paid taxes of 60 billion hryvnias, which is 1.45 billion euros. So of course, that is a nice contribution to the state.
They are actually not working so much directly with us. They have appointed the supervisory board with nine places: three coming from the state and six from independent board members. These are changed every third year.
So from that perspective, it’s the supervisory board that helps me to run the bank in a good way. And then, of course, I meet the ministers and give them updates. But they try to just ensure that we have the things we need to be able to continue to deliver in such a good way.
Jeroen: I guess you have met Zelensky as well.
Mikael: Honestly, no. He is much more focused on international affairs, and he actually isn’t so visible within Ukraine at these types of business events that we are involved in. But the rest I have met, of course.
Jeroen: But you will meet him at some point, I think. What would you tell him, do you think?
Mikael: I don’t know what you tell the president. But what I think about the president is that he is doing a good job, and that he is keeping up the morale of Ukraine in a fantastic way. I think we who are foreigners, even if we work here or in Europe, should be very proud and very thankful for how he has run the country during these tough years.
Jeroen: Let’s take a hard turn at this point in the interview and go back to Mikael. When he was born, where were you born? How did you grow up? Can you share a little bit with our audience about where it was, what it was like to grow up there, your parents, and your upbringing?
Mikael: Yeah. I’m a Swedish citizen and I have Swedish parents. I was born in a city called Norrköping, which is around 200 kilometres south of Stockholm. So it’s a mid-sized city.
My parents were working with groceries, meaning supermarkets. My father owned them and my mother was working in them, and there were several of them. So I honestly spent an awful lot of time in my young years in these supermarkets, working in the evenings and weekends to get some extra money.
Jeroen: It was their business, or they worked for them? It was their own business?
Mikael: No, that was their business. So in the beginning, you got some candy for being there, and after a while you got a normal salary.
So all my life I have seen that you have to work hard to achieve something, and I think that has gone through me. But after my university studies, I left Norrköping and settled in Stockholm. Since then I haven’t looked back and said that I want to go into supermarkets. There have been other things.
Otherwise, I have two sisters, so I’m the middle boy in the family, and that is also a way of being fostered. My mother and father were also present. So I’m a happy guy, actually. I don’t have anything that I would like to change from when I was young. I think I had a good platform.
Jeroen: Were your parents always working, or did you also go on vacation in the summertime?
Mikael: Yeah, of course we were on vacation. But I think that if you are around the supermarket, you work more than the normal employee in society.
Jeroen: Did you ever think: I want to run this business my parents started?
Mikael: No, honestly, I wasn’t really keen on that. I wanted to explore. I’m so curious. I’m a curious person. So doing the same as my parents and being in the same city where I had been was not an option. I wanted to see the world, so to say.
Jeroen: What happened with the supermarkets?
Mikael: When they were in retirement mode, they sold them. And they have been happy since then.
Jeroen: And they still exist?
Mikael: They still exist. Yes, of course.
Jeroen: Oh, wow. And next to learning to work hard in the supermarkets — you know, there is always something going on there, of course — what is the other important thing you learned as a kid from your parents?
Mikael: I think it is that when you have so many people around you, both there, but also in school and with your sisters, you have to always be present where you are, here and now.
So I have an ability to be in the room when I am in the room, and to concentrate on the things, the fun things that are happening there, or the things I can learn there. So that is probably what I have brought with me during the years.
Jeroen: What kind of student were you? Were you a student who was mainly partying? Were you a student who was mainly studying really hard, or were you a very different kind of student?
Mikael: Yeah, that’s a very, very sensitive question. I went through my studies, both in high school and at university, without any big trouble. But I think I was more social than my parents eventually would have liked me to be.
Jeroen: That’s a very diplomatic way of framing it. Did you make a lot of friends during your student time who are still your friends?
Mikael: Yeah. They became fewer and fewer every year. But I have a team around me, or a group of people around me. Now we are five or six.
And I still also have a group of people from Norrköping around me, mostly those who also moved to Stockholm, because it was easier to keep contact with them.
So there are still fragments of friendship from the past, which is nice. When you meet them, sometimes you talk about the future and so on, but mostly you just continue where you stopped last time. It’s amazing how you can tell the same stories over and over again, and it’s equally fun.
Jeroen: Yeah, that makes sense to me. What was your journey to your first job? And how did you get to your first job?
Mikael: When you leave university — and I was very engaged in these types of student organisations, so I had a lot of contact with the large businesses in Sweden — I honestly had no clue what I wanted to do when I left university.
I studied business administration, so of course I thought that I would be in that area, but not more than that. Then I went to five or six interviews of different sorts, and I actually found a person who was, at the same time, a potential manager, but also directly a mentor.
So I actually chose the job based on him and on being able to work with him. And then it became banking. So that was not deliberate. I chose the person rather than banking.
Jeroen: But that mentor was very important to you then?
Mikael: He was very important when I was hired. Unfortunately, because I started in August and in September the financial crisis, which was very deep in Sweden in 1990, started, he actually left his position three months after I started.
So that was the first hard shock: to move into the banking sector and then the person leaves after three months, and you are still there, in the middle of a financial crisis. But that was fostering in a way.
Jeroen: What was the most important thing that he taught you, or something you remember vividly that you learned from him?
Mikael: He was very similar to my core thinking: you have to be present, you have to be curious, you have to listen, and you have to put things into context.
I think I have had a lot of colleagues over the years who are fantastic with details, but still can’t explain the context. And for me, context is always more important than details, because then suddenly you can explain something.
So that, I think, was what I saw in him and what I still admire in him. He has done a career outside the bank, so no problem. From time to time we meet.
Jeroen: What were crucial moments in your career, obviously becoming CEO here, but more in the past?
Mikael: I’m a transformer. So they have always put me, regardless of whether it was in SEB during those 20-plus years, or in Swedbank, where something needed to be changed. I have always taken that area. They have seen it, and I have wanted it.
So it has never been a big discussion. But I think, honestly, the moment where I really had to shape up was when I was 29. Suddenly, due to succession planning that was not working, I moved from handling 12 people in starting up the Oslo branch for SEB, to becoming the global head of commercial banking in SEB.
That was a very, very big step. It was 1,300 people, 13 countries, working with all the large global multinationals on cash management, trade finance, and short-term financing. Of course, that was a big step for me, going from 12 people into that role. So they showed extreme trust in me.
But honestly, the first year, I didn’t do an especially good job, because you wanted to solve everything yourself. And I hadn’t really understood what it was like to have 1,300 people instead of 13.
So you learn a lot during that. I think that was very, very good for me, to step into that role, but also not to fully succeed with it until later. I think when I left that role three and a half years later, I was much, much more mature. Then I probably should have taken that role instead of three and a half years earlier. But sometimes you are lucky, and you see that you can develop while you are working as well.
Jeroen: I’m sure you learned a lot, which you could use later on in your career. What is crucial when it comes to transformation? What are some crucial elements that people should always remember when they want to transform something?
Mikael: If I use this word context, for me it is: where are we? What is actually on its way to happening? Why do we want to change ourselves into what is happening? And how should we do it?
You need to discuss these questions back and forth. And if you find that you have a match, then transformation is not necessarily difficult. I would say it is natural.
So for me, when you have decided what to do, you need to start telling stories. You need to engage. You need to find the team that wants to be part of the journey.
When people understand the context and they are hooked up, then I think transformation is very easy. I think the hard part is understanding why you are doing it.
Sometimes when we see unsuccessful transformations, it is because the one who leads the transformation is not hooked up. They have just received an order from above. And that never works.
You really need to be part of it fully, with your head, your heart, and your stomach, I usually say. Then things are quite natural and work. And since I have been in banking since 1990, a lot of transformation has happened.
Jeroen: Well, yeah, as a transformer, as you call yourself, it has been a great timeframe to work in financial services. In general, we’ve seen a lot of transformation in society as well. Do you also need to be able to deal with a lot of stress, and people who put you under pressure to do it differently from what you actually want?
Mikael: If I had a problem with stress, I probably shouldn’t have been where I’ve been during the years. So that is not the problem.
But I think that you, of course, meet a lot of people who have different opinions. But once again, you have to align. Of course, I can’t always do what I want to do. But nine out of 10 times, I have done what I wanted to do, because we have thought through why we are doing it.
When you explain why we are doing it, because of these reasons, and put it into context, even those who questioned it earlier start to see: okay, yes, this is probably the way. Go ahead.
So I think that is very much what you have to do.
Voice-over: Leaders in Finance with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: We have five unusual questions, which we like to ask you. These are the only questions I always give beforehand. One of them is: do you have someone you see as a great inspiration in your life? Or someone — idolising is maybe too strong a word — but is there someone who is an inspiration to you?
Mikael: Of course, you should say your mother or father or whatever. And of course, they have been important. But honestly, I’m very impressed by people who can put things into context.
During each decade, there is one person who is better than others. But honestly, I think right now, the one I admire is President Stubb, Alexander Stubb from Finland. I think he puts the whole European situation, the whole transatlantic situation, and the whole Ukrainian situation into a context that is absolutely explainable. And it is calmly described.
I think that actually inspires me: to hear someone who understands this and can describe it. So I usually hook onto some person like that.
Jeroen: He’s also someone who, apart from speaking almost native English, is able to apparently deal with Trump, as well as deal with people in your space, in Europe, or anywhere else, right? So apart from that, he still has quite strong opinions. He can apparently still manage all these different relationships.
Mikael: Yeah. And I think it’s because he explains what’s happening. And even Trump needs to understand that from time to time.
Jeroen: Yeah, I think we can say so. Another unusual question is: what’s the scariest moment in your life? Has there been a moment in Ukraine, or has it been a moment somewhere else in your life?
Mikael: I don’t think it has been in Ukraine. Honestly, I’ve been sitting in the shelter and feeling the smell of fire and the smell of gunpowder. But I’m not afraid.
You have to be careful, but I’m not afraid. So I think it goes back to the past. You can be scared for the wrong reasons when you give birth to your daughters. You are extremely scared for the first two or three minutes before you understand that they actually came out alive.
I remember that as one of those moments. But usually I’m a person who just looks forward. I’m not so much for dwelling on things backwards. I always see the positive side of it and move forward.
Jeroen: I have four kids, so I completely relate to that moment when your kids are born, those first few minutes. So I can totally see why that’s scary.
Looking forward, the other unusual question is: you are given 200 million euros or dollars, or the equivalent in another currency, in your personal account, but you have to spend it next week. What would you spend it on?
Mikael: I would probably give maybe one million euros, or less than one million euros, to each of my two daughters. Maybe my wife would like to have a small piece of it as well. But then I would probably give away the rest to charity.
For me, being here now, it is so important that we support society. So why not reinvest it into Ukrainian society, for the sake of Ukraine and the sake of Europe?
Jeroen: Would it be a particular charity or a particular focus? Because there are so many places where people in Ukraine could probably use this money very wisely.
Mikael: I think I would probably follow a little bit what we’re doing. At PrivatBank, we are, of course, supporting the military, but I probably shouldn’t spend it on supporting the military.
Rather, the second thing we are supporting is hospitals in different layers: general hospitals, equipment, but also this patronage service, meaning where you take care of wounded servicemen. And then also institutions like Superhumans, which is fantastic, meaning that when you are out of the emergency phase, they repair both your head and your limbs with prostheses, and get you back into life.
I think that is probably where I would spend most of the money.
Jeroen: Yep. Do you have a somewhat unusual hobby, or something you do in your personal life that is a bit different from most people? Or very different?
Mikael: No, I like swimming. I like swimming in, I wouldn’t say the open sea, because I swim next to the coast. But I can swim some kilometres next to the coast, where we have our summer house in Italy.
Then you have one of these floating devices three or four metres behind you. And then you have your goggles on. From that perspective, it’s fantastic to swim in the waves, but also to look down sometimes and see the fish and shellfish and all of those things.
And then also, from the perspective that if you need to rest, you just tie yourself to the floating device. So that is something I really appreciate. It gives me freedom.
Jeroen: Do you have time and space to also do sports when you’re in your job in Kyiv?
Mikael: Yeah. It’s a little bit different here, because we start work around nine and we work late in the evenings. And that’s good, because you often have the shelling during the night, so people can recover a little bit before we start.
But I’m 60, so I wake up at six o’clock anyway. So I do sports in the mornings.
Jeroen: What do you do?
Mikael: I have a large gym where they have a pool, so I swim quite a lot. But then I was a tennis player, so I play tennis sometimes in the mornings.
Jeroen: So you’re in quite strong physical condition then?
Mikael: You have to be, honestly. Because if you’re not here, you run around between the different floors in your house or in the office building.
And you travel a lot. When I go back home to Sweden, it’s 16 hours door to door, and you sit more or less all the time in a car, an airplane, or a train. You need to be physically fit, even to sit still and survive.
So it’s quite a tough job. I try to be fit for being so old.
Jeroen: That’s very smart. I think every CEO has a tough job and has to be fit, but especially in the context that you are in.
I have asked almost 200 CEOs the same question: do you have a particular book that you would like to share, or books that have inspired you, that you’re currently reading, or that you have gifted to people?
Mikael: Honestly, no, but I read a lot. This last year, I read a lot about Ukraine, Russia, politics, and global political trends. So I’m digging into it.
Another year, I can be into criminal detective stories. And the third year, I’m into romantic books. So I don’t know. I usually keep it for myself and continue.
Jeroen: And maybe on Ukraine, do you have a particular book about the war or Ukraine, something off the top of your head that you could share?
Mikael: I think there are a couple of Ukrainian historians. Plokhy is one of those who has written a book. I think it’s called Ukrainian History or The History of Ukraine, something like that. In 350 pages, it summarises it all.
And honestly, when you read that one the first time and understand how much this country has gone through during its history, amazing is the wrong word. It’s horrible. But at the same time, it is amazing that we have a population here.
And I can just assure you that these people here know how to survive, and they know how to drive forward. I think that is something that is good for the war, and it is good for Europe when we align ourselves into the EU as a member.
Jeroen: What are important sources of information for you? Is it international newspapers? Is it local newspapers? Is it a particular podcast, or is it video or news? What do you normally read?
Mikael: I read Ukrainian newspapers if they are translated into English. Some of them are. But I also read a lot of international newspapers, because it is connected to international politics, and that actually affects Ukraine quite a lot every day.
So I’m into both. But where I get most of the information is from meeting people. As soon as we have an IMF delegation, an IFI delegation, or some national delegation, usually they would like to meet PrivatBank, since we are the largest bank.
Then we have some lunch, breakfast, or dinner, and you learn a lot. You learn a lot when you discuss things.
Jeroen: You mentioned a couple of times that you’re a forward-looking person. So where is it going to go? Nobody knows. But if we look at a couple of things, maybe first on the geopolitical context and then later on we can zoom into PrivatBank.
But on the geopolitical side, I guess the whole war in the Middle East is, in general, but also for Ukraine, very bad news. Is that correct?
Mikael: Yeah, I believe it’s bad news in one way, from the perspective that we eventually will get even fewer weapons supplied to Ukraine. And also now that Russia suddenly can start to export oil again and fuel its economy, which was on the brink of collapse. I think those are two bad signs.
On the other hand, it seems like bad guys around the world are falling. And I think that also creates some stress in the Russian system.
From day to day here, honestly, Ukrainian people don’t go and hope. They work, they continue to serve, they continue to do what is needed from them. If we were to read every newspaper and be hopeful one day and depressed the other day, I think that would be horrifying.
So here we continue. I think everyone here believes that this will unfortunately continue for another year. And everyone is prepared for that.
There is, of course, fatigue in society, but not as much as you could imagine. And I think that what maybe will happen when the war is over is that you will see much more fatigue, because then the tension is released and people can be depressed for real.
Now they can be depressed for a while, but then you have to shape up, because the war is ongoing.
Jeroen: How will this all end, do you think?
Mikael: Every war ends. So this will end as well. The question is when.
I think that Ukraine will enter and be part of the EU. And I honestly think that it will take at least 30 years to rebuild Ukraine. But I think we have a very good example in Poland.
How Poland, after liberation, has done a very, very good job in creating not only a good living standard, but also starting to attract people back to Poland from foreign countries, because it is one of the most progressive countries. So if Ukraine could do a journey like that, it would be fantastic.
Jeroen: Yeah, I just read this article — I don’t remember where it was, maybe the Financial Times or somewhere else — about how much Ukraine could offer Europe in a post-war situation. I mean, obviously there are things for Ukraine to get from Europe, but the other way around as well, when it comes to drone technology, a young population, as you mentioned, and being very digitally savvy.
And above all, everyone in financial services is talking about resilience. But it is nothing compared to living resilience like you do, right?
So what about PrivatBank? As CEO, as the final responsible person for the business, where do you see the bank going? Obviously, it has a lot to do with your favourite word, which is context, I learned. But let’s say the context is somewhat, quote-unquote, stable. I mean, it’s a really hard, strange way of putting it. What are your main goals for PrivatBank for the next few years?
Mikael: We are preparing ourselves for the two phases in front of us: reconstruction and association. So what we are doing is ensuring that we can handle these two periods in a good way. And then we are customer-focused.
That is what has to steer our agenda. We are moving much, much more into utilising customer data. We are making all our customer journeys much, much more customer-adapted.
We are the bank that makes 67% of all transactions. We need to ensure that that can be adapted to you.
We need to continue to develop the products that are not yet existing in Ukraine, like pensions, savings, funds, and mortgages, which are very small. But also on the business and corporate side, similar products.
And then, to succeed with that, we need to develop a large corporate market, but also capital markets, because that is important to generate capital within the country, not only through the banks or foreign investments.
And above all of this shine agile ways of working and AI, which is how we will both increase revenues, reduce risk, and be more efficient.
So I don’t think our agenda is extremely different from other banks. But we just continue to be the one. We say that we are the largest and most profitable bank now, and we will be that after this planning period as well. That is what we should strive for.
Jeroen: And about yourself, your own future: you will run this for another few years, at least, I guess, and then move back to Sweden or to Italy or somewhere else?
Mikael: I don’t know, honestly. That is too far away.
But I am quite sure that after my period here of five years, of which one has already passed, I will hand it over to some young person who can really take over and continue this journey. I think that’s it.
We have a lot of Ukrainians here who could actually run this bank equally well as I’m doing.
Jeroen: Very modest CEO. A couple of last questions before we end this conversation. One of them is: if people listen to this, what should they really remember and think about your bank, or being in Ukraine? What are the most important things that they should take away?
Mikael: I think they should start to see Ukraine as a normal country, a coming European country, a country with a lot of entrepreneurship and drive that they could actually see as a benefit to Europe.
But I have also been around for so long, so I can see that when we come to negotiations, there will be a lot of European countries that say: oh, they are dangerous because they are more effective than us in agriculture, or they are more effective than us in that area.
From that perspective, it will take a little bit longer. But I actually hope that people will see what we can contribute with, rather than why we are a threat.
Jeroen: That’s a very good point. The other question I’ve always asked at the end of every single interview is: do you have a particular tip for people who start their careers today? It could be someone who has his first job at PrivatBank or a Dutch bank, let’s say ING or ABN AMRO, or someone in general who starts their career.
It could also be to the younger Mikael, right? When you started. A tip for yourself back then. Do you have something to share there?
Mikael: Yeah, I think what I say to young people is that you need to understand who the customers are. Talk to the customer, regardless of whether you have a job where you talk to the customer or not. You need to talk to customers.
You need to understand customer data. And the way to do that is to use slicing AI to actually start analysing and understanding the customers.
If you understand the customer and you put the customer’s need into context, then everything else is easy.
So start with the customer, but utilise the new technology to get there. And that is a good way to start understanding the new technology as well.
Jeroen: Last question from my side. I was allowed to ask you a lot of questions, and I did, both personal and about the business. Is there anything you would like to share that you think we should have discussed, or anything else that you would like to share in this interview?
Mikael: I think what I would like to say is that, not only when talking about EU association, I also think that it is already now a country where banks and private corporates could invest.
But I’m a little bit different. I’m not protective of me. I think that if we want to invest 800 billion euros or dollars into Ukraine, we need to have more banks here. We need more international corporates here. We need more competition.
So for me, it’s the more the merrier. And I think this country is open for that. So everyone is welcome.
Jeroen: Great. That’s the first CEO in my podcast who says we need more competition. That says a lot about the context you’re in.
I’m extraordinarily grateful, Mikael, for you taking the time, moving from your office somewhere upstairs in your headquarters to the shelter, and still continuing the conversation. I highly appreciate that. I’m very impressed by how calm and modest you are in such a difficult situation that you and your teams are in.
So thank you so much for taking the time to speak to Leaders in Finance, as well as to me, because I was the first listener and I highly enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much. I wish you all the best for the future with your bank, but also for you personally.
Thank you so much.
Mikael: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Jeroen: Thank you.
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