Jeroen: I’ve just come out of the interview with Stefaan Decraene, the CEO of Rabobank. What a fantastic time I spent with him. I highly enjoyed the interview.
It was personal. We talked about the business and all the things in between. We talked about the three A’s: agro, AI and AML. We spoke about water, we spoke about leadership, how he was brought up, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Wennink report, sports when it comes to cycling and football, and tips for starters about risk-taking and actually taking opportunities versus not taking them.
We talked about so many things that I’m just very excited right now to listen to this interview again, although I’ve only just come out of that interview. It was really, really interesting. And I love the mix between the business and the personal, which is obviously why this podcast is there in the first place.
So I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did making it. And as always, please share your feedback if there’s something you enjoyed or, obviously, something that you would like to see differently next time. For now, please enjoy the episode with the CEO of Rabobank, Stefaan Decraene.
Welcome to a new episode of the Leaders in Finance Podcast. It’s great to have you with us. Thank you for tuning in again.
My guest this week is Stefaan Decraene, who is the Chairman of the Managing Board of Rabobank. Welcome, Stefaan.
Stefaan: Thank you.
Jeroen: I’m really glad you’re here. And before we get started, we would like to thank our partners for their ongoing support. These are EY, Mogelijk Vastgoedfinancieringen, Duna and Lepaya.
Thanks to all of you. And as is a good tradition with Leaders in Finance, I’ll begin by spelling my guest’s name. That’s Stefaan, S-T-E-F-A-A-N.
And Decraene, the last name, is D-E-C-R-A-E-N-E. Stefaan Decraene has served as Chair of Rabobank’s Managing Board since January 2023, becoming the first non-Dutch person to lead the bank. In this role, he heads an international cooperative bank with around 48,000 employees across 34 countries.
Decraene began his career in 1988 at Bacob Bank, a Belgian cooperative bank that became Artesia, where he worked in investment banking and securities before becoming Chair of Artesia Securities and subsequently Chair of Bank Artesia Nederland. He then held several senior positions at Dexia. In 2006, he became Chair of Dexia Bank Belgium.
He also took on group-level responsibility for retail and commercial banking in Belgium, Turkey, Slovakia and Luxembourg. In 2011, Decraene joined BNP Paribas. Based in Paris, he spent the next 11 years on the Group’s Executive Committee, where he was responsible for its international retail banking activities.
Since taking the helm at Rabobank, Decraene has overseen an internal reorganisation and a period of strong financial performance. In 2024, Rabobank reported a record net profit of €5.2 billion and close to €5 billion again in 2025. In 2026, the bank announced plans to invest up to €2 billion in data, technology and artificial intelligence over the next three years.
Decraene studied political, social and economic sciences at the University of Brussels and later earned a master’s degree in economics from KU Leuven. Finally, he is 61 years old and is married to Catherine. They have two sons, and he is also a grandfather. During the week, he lives in Amsterdam.
At weekends, he returns home to Bruges, Belgium. I hope that was all correct, and thanks for allowing me to say that as an introduction, Stefaan. We’re going to learn much more about you today, I hope.
You’ve been in the Netherlands for over three years now. You worked in the Netherlands before, about 25 years ago. As a semi-outsider—you’re not really an outsider anymore—do you think the Netherlands has changed a lot over the course of that quarter of a century?
Stefaan: Yeah, it has been a long time. If I go back, there’s one thing that has stayed the same, and it’s the welcoming spirit I’ve experienced here in the Netherlands. When I came here, I think, 25 years ago, it was more to solve some problems at Dexia Bank Nederland.
And even at that time, I felt welcomed from the first day. I was not Dutch, and I didn’t know the business that well. I came here to try to solve a problem.
And if I now look back, coming to the Netherlands to lead Rabobank was a little bit the same. I met a lot of people from the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board, and again, from the first day, I felt welcomed. And this is a very nice spirit.
This is a very nice characteristic or value that I found in the Netherlands. On the other hand, if I compare it with 25 years ago, I think it’s not only Dutch, but regulation has gone way too far. One of my first interviews with the Dutch press was about what had surprised me. It was the complex organisations and the regulation that I had seen, not only at the banking level, but at a general level in the Netherlands.
So compared with 25 years ago, that’s a big difference.
Jeroen: Yeah, people often complain and use the term gold-plating, like adding even more regulation on top of European regulation. That does resonate with you?
Stefaan: It certainly resonates. And I even said it in the bank: it’s not only gold-plating at the Dutch level. Even within Rabobank, we did gold-plating on gold-plating. And that’s one of the challenges I have: to make the bank much simpler.
Jeroen: Yeah, yeah. So back to when you became—I call it CEO. I know it’s not the formal term for Rabobank, but I hope you’ll allow me.
When you became CEO, how did you actually become CEO? How did that go?
Stefaan: Well, I never had the objective, when I started my professional career, to become a CEO. I always said: what would I like to do? That’s also sometimes a conversation I have with young talent: what do you like to do?
When I started in banking, there were three items that were quite important to me. First of all, I liked being more on the commercial side than on the back-office side. Secondly, I liked corporates and entrepreneurs more as clients, and not retail.
With all the respect I have for retail. And the third item was that, at some point in time, I would like to lead people and lead teams. And whatever I got as a proposition in my job, I tested.
Is this commercial? Is it linked to corporates? Is it something where I can grow and lead people or teams?
And to be honest, I started as a credit analyst because, if I wanted to work for companies, I should know how to read a balance sheet. And so I started. And every time, I checked that against those items.
So that’s always advice I give to youngsters: what do you like to do? Because what you like to do, you do better.
The second item, for me, is that there always has to be something challenging. There has to be a change. When I’m, at some point in time, on autopilot, then I don’t like it anymore.
So something has to change. Something has to be challenging. And so I grew during my career, taking different jobs and taking different challenges.
At a certain point in time, I think I got a little bit of a reputation: if there’s a problem, you can call Stefaan, and probably he will solve it or take it on. Like when they asked me 25 years ago to join Dexia Bank Nederland. And so you get a kind of knowledge and experience that is valued by the company.
And so I grew to different levels in the organisation. This was the case in Belgium, then in Paris and now in the Netherlands. I became CEO of Dexia Bank Belgium, which is now Belfius.
I think I was at the beginning of my forties, which was very early, to be honest. Looking back, I probably was not ready at that time, but I learnt a lot. So going back to your question: did I ever dream of becoming a CEO?
To be honest, no. Did I serve for more than ten years in this function? Yes, with the characteristics I tried to explain a little bit.
Jeroen: Very practically speaking, how did it go? Did an executive search firm call you? How did it go?
Stefaan: No, I’m Flemish. Flemish people are loyal. I’m 61, like you said at the beginning.
This is my third job because I always found challenges within the organisations I worked for. To be honest, it’s the first time that I have been contacted by a search company to join Rabobank. When I left the Belgian bank to join BNP Paribas, I came into contact with Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, who was the CEO at that time.
I was President of Febelfin at the time, and he said: “Would you not like to join BNP Paribas Fortis?” He asked me at the right moment, and so I joined them. Here, it was through search.
Jeroen: Was it like, “This is the job I’m going to do,” or were you like, “I’m going to talk, but I’m not sure I will take it”?
Stefaan: Yeah, it’s a good question. When I came here for the first time, to Utrecht, to see some of my board members, I said: “Yeah, perhaps,” because I was quite happy at BNP Paribas. I was on the management team.
I was not the CEO. And I said there was perhaps a 30% chance I would do it. But more and more, I was triggered by the story.
More and more, I was triggered by the beauty of the bank. And more and more, I was triggered by: hey, there’s a challenge. I think this bank can do better than it is doing today.
And that’s one element. The second element was coming from a listed bank and going to a cooperative bank, where you can have much more impact on society. That was also a challenge for me. So the 30% went quite quickly to 100%.
So I joined almost four years ago. And I even recently decided to go for a second term.
Jeroen: Yeah, which was announced earlier than expected, right?
Stefaan: Yeah, because at that time, everybody thought I would stay for four years and then probably leave again. And then I said: no, this is not the kind of doubt that I would like to leave in the company. With the Board of Directors, we decided to announce the prolongation a little bit early, which creates stability.
And stability is good, I think, for the bank.
Jeroen: And of course, BNP Paribas and Rabobank are completely different banks. You mentioned listed and cooperative. But setting aside the differences between the banks, how different is being on the board versus being the CEO?
Stefaan: Oh, it’s completely different. One of the biggest differences was listed bank versus cooperative bank. And the second one is being a member of a Management Board versus being CEO.
At the end, as the CEO, you’re responsible. You’re decisive. The final decision is in your hands.
And there is also a difference between the French way of managing a bank and the Dutch way of managing a bank. At a cooperative bank, it’s participative management. In France, we had a very strong CEO who took a lot of the decisions on his own.
He challenged everybody, but he was very decisive. So being the final leader now is a big difference. In the beginning, it was a little bit strange, but you learn quickly.
I’m very happy with this role. I’m very happy with my team. I’m very happy with my Board of Directors.
And I think we all have the same vision of where we should take the bank, and that’s good.
Jeroen: Is it tougher to be, ultimately, the one everyone will look at when things don’t go that well?
Stefaan: I would not use the word tougher. It gives you more responsibility because, at the end of the road, you think: what are the consequences of the decision? Is everybody aligned or not?
If not everybody is aligned, how do you cope with that, et cetera? When you’re part of a team, you say: okay, I’m part of the team, but there’s a CEO who will take the final decision. So it’s not tougher.
It just gives you more responsibility, and you should be aware of it, which I am.
Jeroen: Yeah, clearly. So if someone is in the position you were in at the time, going from a board position to a CEO position and then arriving in Utrecht, what would you recommend to people who are in the same position and becoming CEO somewhere?
Some people say that first, you should listen to everyone for a long time and then take decisions. Or you come in and immediately announce your plans. What would you recommend to people? What is a good approach, or what is the approach that worked for you?
Stefaan: When I arrived, I did an onboarding. I call it an onboarding. So I met all my colleagues.
I went to all the different divisions. I had the advantage that I knew a little bit about how banking works. And I had a very simple system, to be honest.
When I had a meeting with somebody or with a team, and they explained what they were doing, what they were not doing and what was on the agenda, I gave it a V or a red mark. And if there was a V, I said: okay, this is quite under control. This is not on my short-term to-do list.
If I had a red one, I said: I think we can do better here, or we should change something. And I did that over a period of three months. I met everybody here in the Netherlands, but also internationally.
And then you say: okay, what are the strengths of this bank? What are the opportunities? What are the weaknesses, and where do we have to work?
And I also started from day zero. I didn’t say to anybody: give me 100 days and then I will start.
No, I started from the beginning. I was learning, and when I was convinced that I had all the necessary information, I made a little bit of an action list and said: what are we going to change?
What’s for the short term? What’s for the medium term? What’s for the long term?
The advantage was that this was a bank with an amazing franchise. I called it a little bit of a Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t make it beautiful.
It was a beautiful bank. Together with my colleagues and all the staff, I just tried to make it a little bit better. And better means more client-focused and more efficient.
Jeroen: Because in my preparation, I read a couple of times that you were surprised by, for example, the number of people in meetings.
Stefaan: Yeah, it’s true.
Jeroen: Was that something you had never seen before?
Stefaan: I said recently at a meeting at Rabobank that a lot of people have FOMO: the fear of missing out, the fear of missing something that is happening or being decided in the bank. I always say the contrary. If they don’t invite me, I’m very happy because that means they can take the decision without me, which is good.
So I changed that quite quickly. And sometimes I was a little bit blunt and asked them: why are you at this meeting? Then they would give me a reason, and I would say: I don’t think we need that.
So you can leave the meeting. And that’s a little bit of a bold decision to take. But people say: yeah, perhaps he’s right.
I should not be there. It still takes time. It’s a cultural change.
You don’t change that from one day to the next. I like the way they call it here. I call it participative management. We take 80% of the decisions in collaboration or in agreement.
But I want everybody—not only me—to take 20% of the decisions on their own. If you have the data, if you have the information and if you have the knowledge, then take the decision. You don’t always have to check everything ten times with all your colleagues.
No. If you want to have a very agile organisation, take the decision. It’s about responsibility and accountability.
And I think that’s quite important.
Jeroen: And the decisions you actually had to take in the beginning—what were the most important ones?
Stefaan: Changing people. If you want to change an organisation, you have to change people. And those are not always the nicest decisions you have to take.
But at a certain point in time, I want to have the best people at the best moment, in the best job. Some people were leaving the bank and some people were retiring, so I had to create my own team. That’s what I say to everybody.
It’s about leadership. When you take a new job, you probably receive a team. After one year, it should be your team.
You cannot say to me after one year: I don’t have the right people; I don’t have the right expertise. That’s your responsibility. And I think that after one year, I had my team.
I’m very pleased with my team.
Jeroen: One of the things I read as well is your S’s: simple, scalable, sustainable and speed. Sometimes you add smile.
I see you smile, so that’s good. But let’s take one of these S’s, which is speed. We’ve already spoken about it, but I’m curious to make that very practical: how do you speed up an organisation?
What’s a way to do that as a CEO? Because there are, as I said in my introduction, 48,000 people. I mean, you can’t manage them all.
You need to find ways to speed up an organisation. I would like to learn how you do that.
Stefaan: Well, first of all, I think that, as a leader, you have to describe a little bit what your vision is and where you want to go. And on that, you have to be very clear. And I repeat it several times.
Whenever I do quarterly video recordings, I explain what’s on my agenda, what I did in the last three months, what’s on my agenda for the coming three months and what the big message is that I want to give to everybody. I think those quarterly videos are viewed by more than 20,000 people each time. So there, I can leave a message.
So it has to be very clear. It has to be focused. And don’t change it too much, which I try not to do.
That’s one. Secondly, there are the topics I call the S’s, and indeed, that’s something I use a lot: simplicity and speed. I use that and also give examples of what I don’t like and what I do like.
So each time in that video, somebody explains what they did to make the bank simpler and create more speed. Coming back to speed, it’s about the way of taking decisions, taking responsibility and taking accountability.
When I arrived, we also set up a completely new leadership programme for the whole bank, based on those kinds of characteristics.
What is responsibility? What are your rights? What are your obligations?
What is client focus? And it’s, again, a kind of cultural change. And that takes time.
I see a lot of improvement in client focus. I see a lot of improvement in taking responsibility and accountability. There’s still a lot to do on simplicity, to be honest.
Jeroen: And I think that if I were in your position, it would be so hard to be patient. Because, as you said, it takes time, but you want to go fast. You want to go as fast as you can without breaking things.
Stefaan: True. It’s one of the things I have to work on: patience.
And the older I get, the less patience I have. So sometimes people have to calm me down: “It’s improving, Stefaan. So wait, wait. You will see it.”
True. I would like the goal that we have on simplicity to go a little bit quicker than I see it going today. But I have to be patient. I’m still working on it.
Jeroen: I mentioned in my introduction that you’ve been making a lot of cash in the last few years. You’ve been earning a lot. It’s going really well.
It’s kind of a weird question, but is this because of your leadership and because the bank is doing a really good job, or is it because the environment is very friendly, economically speaking?
Stefaan: No, when I arrived, as I said, it was a very beautiful bank with a nice franchise. I tried to make it a little bit more client-focused. In a lot of segments, we have the highest market share: agriculture, business, small and medium-sized businesses and savings.
Of course, we had the environment. Interest rates went up, so you see that not only Rabobank’s results were good, but the results of other banks were also good.
The one thing I changed when I arrived was this: we are a cooperative bank, but in the first place, we are a bank. The better we are as a bank and the better our results, the more we can do for society. When I arrived, a lot of people were talking to me about making the world better, which is a very nice purpose, but you can only do that if you have a nice bank.
So I changed that focus a little bit. And now it makes me very happy that, with the results we have, I always say: we don’t have shareholders; we have three stakeholders. We have our clients, we have, of course, our employees and we have society. Society is our shareholder.
So with the money we are making, we try to have a positive impact on society. And that means I sometimes get the question: do you prefer to do more for the profit of the bank or to give back to society?
Both are important to me. So we created the Rabo Impact Foundation last year, and over the last three years, we have offered more than €1 billion to society through different initiatives. These include the energy transition for small and medium-sized companies and an insulation budget for our clients.
Recently, we did something that I really liked. We are going to create more than 180 basketball courts or football courts to encourage younger people to play outside with each other again and to do sports, which is good for their health and so on.
So that is what I call having a positive impact on society. And that makes me, as a CEO, very proud that we can do that.
Jeroen: I don’t think there’s any other private institution in the Netherlands that is pouring so much money into society, right? Are there others that are doing this on a larger scale?
Stefaan: No, but that’s not a criticism of the others. It’s just that we have this different nature. We are cooperative and we have members, and those members ask and challenge us about what we are doing for society.
It began a lot with agro and the agro transition, then the energy transition, and now we are adding health. I think all our members, and also the General Members Council, are really asking: what are you doing, and how are you going to do it?
The fact that we now have nice results and can increase those amounts makes them happy and makes us happy. It’s about having more and more impact on society.
Jeroen: Yeah, because if you look at the three stakeholders, you’ve given a lot to society—a lot of money, time and everything. I think your colleagues are doing well as well, so the second stakeholder is in a good position.
Then I would also be very tempted to acquire another business, with so much cash there. But equally, I would be a little worried about the future, so I would also like to keep a lot of cash. Your rating is incredible, of course—one of the strongest in the world. So are you tempted to acquire other businesses?
Stefaan: That’s a very good question. It’s even a very topical question. Today, the bank is doing very well. We don’t have shares, so I cannot pay dividends and I cannot buy back shares.
Today, this bank has one of the highest solvency ratios, as they call it in banking, which is above 20%. That’s high. It’s even very high, which gives us a lot of excess capital.
So together with my Management Board and Board of Directors, we look at what we can do with that excess capital. Of course, we can look at acquisitions, which means external growth. That can be in the Netherlands or outside the Netherlands. That’s my job. That’s what I’m doing together with my colleagues: seeing what the opportunities are and in which segments.
It takes two to tango, so we can see an opportunity—
Jeroen: Would you look for cooperatives specifically?
Stefaan: Not only cooperatives. If something fits our strategy and fits the services and products we offer our clients, then we will have a look at it. It can be cooperative or non-cooperative.
So that’s what I’m doing. Today, I cannot go into detail because there is no concrete file. Next to that, as I said, we created the cooperative initiatives and are giving back to society.
If we cannot make any acquisitions in the years to come, perhaps we have to think a little bit further: what more can we do for society? And perhaps we can invest in other businesses outside banking.
Jeroen: It’s a nice problem to have.
Stefaan: Yeah, it’s a nice problem to have. But, to quote my CFO, the money is not burning a hole in my pocket.
It’s not because we have that kind of excess capital that we should do stupid things. One of the words I learnt—people said: “Stefaan, if you are CEO of Rabobank, you’re seen as a steward.”
You receive a bank, and during the time that you manage the bank with your team, you should try to make it better so that you can give it to the next generation.
And that’s the way I see it: to be a good steward of that bank and try to give it to my successor in an even better state than when I received it. And I like this concept of stewardship.
Voice-over: This is the Leaders in Finance podcast with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: I will come back to a couple of topics around agriculture, and maybe a little bit about AML, tech and AI. I will come back to that. But first, let’s make a hard turn to Stefaan personally.
Could you share a little bit with me and my listeners about how you grew up?
Stefaan: I grew up in a very nice family. My father was an engineer, and we lived near a small city called Bruges. I have two sisters.
I went to high school in Bruges and then I went to university. As you said at the beginning, I earned a master’s degree in applied economics. And when I started working, the economic outlook was quite okay at that time. I could choose between different companies.
And I chose banking, to be honest. Everyone said: why banking? I will be very honest: one of my friends said that I should go into banking.
You get a very good educational programme, which was true for two years. And you learn a lot, and then you see what you can do. Another company I could have joined was Procter & Gamble, I think, and I’ve forgotten the third one.
That’s the way I started in banking.
Jeroen: For one second, if I may, just a little bit back. You mentioned your dad. What about your mother?
Stefaan: Yeah. No, I think my mother had an even tougher job than my father because my father had his job, while my mother was responsible for our education and the household.
So her profession was to take care of us, which I think was more difficult than my father’s job.
Jeroen: And your sisters—where are you ranked? Are you the first or the second?
Stefaan: I’m the second one.
Jeroen: You’re the sandwich.
Stefaan: Yeah, I’m the sandwich. They always ask: is that the best role? I don’t know, because it was the role I had.
But my sisters say: “Yeah, that’s the best role because you were a boy and we were girls,” which I don’t agree with. My sisters both worked in healthcare, in hospitals, as nurses.
Jeroen: And what kind of atmosphere was there at home? Was it religious, for example? Was it very relaxed, or was there a lot of discussion? Can you share a little bit more to give us an idea of how you grew up?
Stefaan: We were a very, very humble family. My father was working at a company that, at the time, made agricultural machines.
Jeroen: Full circle.
Stefaan: Yeah, full circle. I always say that.
And it’s a little bit strange because my father was a very clever man, but very modest. He had different opportunities to take bigger steps in his career, and he didn’t take them. And I always looked at him and thought: why didn’t you do that? I did it.
I think my father had the opportunity, at a certain point in time, to go and work in Brazil. I still remember that I was very young. I remember that discussion.
And he didn’t want to do it. He wanted to stay in the place where we were living and not take that kind of risk. So, to be honest, I’m a little bit more of a risk-taker than my father.
Everybody always said: your father is a very modest, very intelligent engineer, but he never took that risk. I just took a lot of risks. And when I look back, I always say: once you take a risk and see that it works out, and it was a challenge but you did it quite well, then you start looking for the next one.
Jeroen: But you spoke about this with your dad?
Stefaan: Yeah, because of course, like every dad, he’s proud and follows what I’m doing. He always says that I’m working too hard and that I should be at home more.
But then we had that kind of discussion, and I was also challenging him a little bit because I said: why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you go to Brazil, and why didn’t you take that challenge?
And he said: because I didn’t dare. And I said: you should have done it because I think you could have made it. And then, probably, once you had done it, you would have loved it and tried another challenge.
Jeroen: Great feedback from a son. Reverse mentoring, reverse mentoring.
Do you also think that’s maybe why you thought: I’m going to take that risk? When the opportunity is there, I will grab it.
Stefaan: I don’t know. It’s a little bit like what you were saying about patience.
Since I was young, if I wanted to do something, it had to move forward. There should be movement.
There should be change. There should be something happening. If it’s just about managing business as usual, that’s not my character.
Jeroen: So you like the action.
Stefaan: Yeah. From when I was young, whenever we organised something and, for example, said in the evening: “Hey, let’s play football on that court,” I was calling everyone: “Let’s go there and let’s do it.”
So I was always the one who took the initiative to do something.
Jeroen: What’s the most important lesson your parents gave you, do you think?
Stefaan: My father always said—and I love it; I even use it a lot in the bank—you always have rights, but you always have obligations. Noblesse oblige. Yeah, no rights without obligations.
And the second one is: stay humble.
Whatever you become, stay humble. If I look at my close friends, they were already my friends when I was 16, 18 or 19 years old, when I didn’t have the position I have today. So I didn’t create my friendships through my positions in companies or banks.
And that’s something that makes me proud. I still talk to everybody I knew when I was 16 or 18, or whatever. So whatever you do in your life, whatever you achieve in your life, stay humble.
Jeroen: Have you had moments when you were almost at the point where you thought: hey, I’m becoming a little arrogant here? I need to think about what I learnt when I was young: stay humble.
Stefaan: You use the word arrogant. I don’t know if it’s arrogant, but at the bank, I can be tough. At the bank, I can be.
If I’m not pleased, they see it. If I’m pleased, they also see it. But if I’m not pleased, they see it.
I’m quite open. I’m quite—
Jeroen: Yeah, I’ve heard you’re more direct than the average Dutchman, who is already quite direct.
Stefaan: Yeah, everybody says that. You never expect a Flemish guy to be that direct.
But that’s based a little bit on my character. Again, if things are going well, I’m very pleased, and I say it and share the successes. But if it’s not as I expected, then I ask: why?
What can we do about it? And I prefer that because that’s a little bit of authenticity. What you see is what you get.
I don’t have a hidden agenda. And I share a lot with my colleagues. I share a lot of my vision.
Also, sometimes when I have doubts. Sometimes people think that you know everything, which is not true. I also have doubts. If I don’t have the data, if I don’t have the expertise or if I don’t have the information, I cannot take decisions.
And then I share those kinds of things with my colleagues. So I think that, outside the bank, I’m quite a friendly guy.
Inside the bank, I can be tough.
Jeroen: That’s good, because I’m outside. So when it comes to your upbringing, football was important, I read.
When did you start playing?
Stefaan: I was living next to a village called Loppem. And I started when I was, if I’m right, eight years old.
Jeroen: Are you still playing?
Stefaan: No, no, no. Then I stopped playing football and started playing tennis. But then I injured my Achilles tendons.
I ruptured both Achilles tendons. So now it’s a little bit more cycling again.
Jeroen: Where were you positioned on the field during your football career?
Stefaan: I was—my children always laugh about the peak of my football career.
Jeroen: Champions League, right?
Stefaan: I never played at the top level. I played in defence, at right-back. I’m right-footed, so I played at right-back.
But I was okay. I wasn’t a good player. I was okay.
Jeroen: You do still watch, right?
Stefaan: I do still watch, yeah.
Jeroen: So Club Brugge is your club?
Stefaan: Yeah, Club Brugge is my club, yeah.
Jeroen: And in the Netherlands, I heard from some people who work with you that you’re also becoming more interested in Dutch football?
Stefaan: I’m obliged to follow what’s happening because my colleagues are talking about it. And then I followed a little bit that Ajax was doing a little less well than expected and PSV was still doing better. So yeah, I follow Dutch football a little bit.
To be honest, I’ve never been to a Dutch match. But now I will go because there’s a Champions League match between PSV and Club Brugge.
Jeroen: Oh, wow.
Stefaan: So I think it’s in November, and I will go.
Jeroen: That’s great. And what do you like about sports? Because in general, you love sports, right?
You like watching it, and you did it in the past. I don’t know if you still do. You cycle yourself, right?
Stefaan: I do some cycling, and I also go to the gym here.
Jeroen: What do you like most about sports?
Stefaan: I think it’s the emotion.
It’s the emotion on the one hand and, on the other hand, bringing people together. When you go to a football match, for me, it’s not only about watching the team because I support the team. It’s about creating emotion and scoring a goal or whatever.
But it’s also the societal impact of sports: bringing people together and connecting. When I go there, I see all my friends from childhood. So those are the two parts that are important to me, I think.
Jeroen: And a lot of people thought you were crazy, I think—sorry to say. You went back into cycling with Rabobank. That was quite a decision because Rabobank has quite a history in cycling.
But you did it.
Stefaan: That’s a moment when you need to take a decision. I tested it. I met Richard Plugge a few times, and I have a lot of respect for what he and his team are doing.
I checked within Rabobank: should we not do that? In the beginning, the feedback was more negative than positive. Then, at a certain point in time, I said: okay, fine, let’s take a decision. And I took the decision.
I think it was Wout van Aert who described it in the right words. He said that it was a very tough but good decision when Rabobank decided to leave cycling years ago, because it was a wake-up call for everybody.
And now, the decision I have taken to step back in is even more difficult. It shows the cycling industry that a bank like Rabobank, which is a professional organisation, has a lot of trust in the sport again.
And to be honest, now, after a year and a half, I think the feedback we have received is much more positive than even I expected. I was a little bit frustrated when I was with my communications team and we were organising our press conference for the figures.
We had eight or nine people in the room. And then we announced that we would step back into Team Visma | Lease a Bike, and I think there were 100 journalists in the room. That shows the interest that the media and the public still have in the sport.
Jeroen: Exactly. So, I read during my preparation that you actually wanted to become a diplomat.
Stefaan: Yeah.
Jeroen: Is that right?
Stefaan: Yeah, it’s true.
Jeroen: From what I’ve learnt over the last half hour, you don’t sound like the diplomatic type.
Stefaan: No.
Jeroen: Or are you?
Stefaan: I think I can be a diplomat. But to be honest, I’m very pleased with the choice I made. It was one of the specialisations you had to choose when you studied applied economics in Leuven, and I said: being an ambassador is probably a nice job.
Now, I have travelled a lot and I always meet many ambassadors. If I compare the variety of responsibilities I have leading a bank with being the ambassador of a country in one other city, I’m very happy that I chose the latter.
Jeroen: What kind of student were you? Geert Lippens, the Netherlands CEO here at BNP Paribas, said: “I was not a table dancer.” Were you?
Stefaan: I was a very social student. Applied economics was a master’s degree that, at the time, took four years. I completed it in four years.
Only in the first year did I have resits. I normally had exams in July, but I didn’t pass all of them, so I had to do resits at the beginning of September. But then I understood a little bit how the system worked, and after that, I passed every year in July, so I had three months of holiday.
Quite quickly, I saw how the system worked. So, let’s be honest: I had five months of fun and then three months of very hard work. That balance worked quite well.
When I look back, it was the most beautiful time of my life.
Jeroen: Why was that? Was it the partying, having a lot of friends or drinking a lot?
Stefaan: A lot of friends, a lot of partying and a lot of sports. The only thing I missed was what you have today: Erasmus. Now, students can go to another university or another city for three or six months. In my time, that didn’t exist.
So I’m a little bit sad that I didn’t experience that. But yeah, we were there with a lot of friends and we did a lot of sports.
At that time, to be honest, we didn’t have an iPhone or an iPad. You actually talked to people. We talked to people. If we wanted to meet, we had to meet at the bar. There was no gaming.
It was a fun period. And honestly, I always say to people: of course, you learn a lot from the theory and economics you are studying. But on the other hand, I learnt a lot about how to connect, how to listen, how to talk, how to present and how to interact. I think those are quite important talents that you need to be a good manager.
Jeroen: Arguably even more important than what you were studying at the time, right? It’s great to have your degree, but that’s what you’re saying as well, right?
Stefaan: That’s what I’m saying. And you see some people take a full year to be a kind of chair of the—
Jeroen: Student association.
Stefaan: Student association, yeah. And honestly, I’ve talked about this with colleagues. I think that’s very fruitful because there, you already learn how to manage a small organisation at a young age.
Jeroen: Do you still have a lot of friends from when you were growing up, or are most of your friends from your student days?
Stefaan: Both, both.
[Part of the transcript is unclear here.]
That’s also the reason why I mentioned the small football courts we are going to create: to bring people together again. That evolution probably creates a lot of opportunities, but also a lot of uncertainty, I think.
Jeroen: Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about what I have called—you came up with the S’s; I came up with the A’s—AI, agro and AML.
On AI, what I would find extremely difficult in your position is that there are so many things you can do. There’s low-hanging fruit, such as cost reductions. We all know examples involving call centres and relatively simple things you can do. They are pretty clear no-brainers, right? You just do them, and they work.
But I can imagine that, in an organisation with almost 50,000 people, there are maybe 1,000 or more AI initiatives. How do you choose what is really important and what is not? Because you can’t do everything related to AI.
Stefaan: First of all, we set up clear governance. Today, that governance is even at the highest level, at the level of the Management Board.
Today, we have 14 use cases.
Jeroen: Fourteen?
Stefaan: Fourteen. And we are following those very closely, from A to Z, at the highest level. They should be client-focused, and there are certain important criteria they have to meet before we try to implement them. That’s one.
But that’s all ongoing. What I’m still asking my people to do is think a little bit from the outside in because the world can change very quickly.
I’ll give you one example. Today, if you’re looking for a mortgage and you look at the different rates offered by the banks, you will mostly find the highest rates. Then you go to the bank or an intermediary, and they will discuss and negotiate with you, and the rate will probably go down a little.
But today, with agentic AI, you perhaps have to start with the lowest interest rate because otherwise, the algorithm of the agentic AI won’t choose you.
You will say: “Look, I want to buy a house in Amsterdam. That’s my budget. I want to have a loan of €500,000. Can you look for the best mortgage for me? This is the duration, and I want a fixed rate.”
The algorithm will search for that. It already exists today. If that algorithm doesn’t call Rabobank and say that we are on the list, then we are out.
So how do you cope with that? I’m giving a very simple example now. Today, there is still a lot of personal interaction between the bank and its clients. That has already decreased because of call centres, apps and so on.
The next step is that agentic AI will do it. How will you, as a bank, adapt to that? That’s the whole challenge we have because we are one of the biggest players in the Netherlands. How do we cope with that evolution?
Jeroen: How do you inform yourself? Because it’s so hard. This is all about looking into the future and considering what AI will actually do.
Maybe it won’t change as quickly as we think. Maybe it will. Who knows? It’s all about timing.
Almost everyone I meet agrees that many things will change because of AI. But the timing is uncertain. Some people say it will happen next year.
Stefaan: Is that technology not also creating cyber risks? All of that should be taken into account.
I think it will happen. Ten years ago, we talked about internet banking and said that all banks should offer internet banking. But it didn’t happen as quickly as we thought it would.
Here, it could be the opposite. It could go faster than we think. It could happen today.
Jeroen: Does everybody feel the urgency to get all the AI-related things in place and to keep innovating?
Stefaan: The tone from the top is very important. As I said, we spend a lot of time talking about AI. I went to London with my Management Board to visit other banks.
As a Management Board, we created our own agentic AI. We have reverse mentoring. We are constantly learning.
My Chief Human Resources Officer said that we, as a Management Board, should have at least 25% of the available knowledge of AI.
Jeroen: Twenty-five per cent?
Stefaan: Yeah, which is a lot. If the maximum is 100%, then you should have 25%, and that’s the minimum you should have.
So we are constantly working on that. And yeah, be curious. Be curious and always—
Jeroen: Are you using it yourself, by the way?
Stefaan: A lot.
Jeroen: For practical tasks? For email?
Stefaan: For everything. Whatever level you are at, you should be curious and always try to learn. That’s what I say to everybody.
You can learn by using it yourself, by reading books or by talking to people. And that’s what I’m encouraging.
Jeroen: Do you have an example you’re willing to share where you think: this is an AI project I’m very excited about? Or is that all very sensitive information, and are you worried that everybody will copy it?
Stefaan: No, but the challenge I gave is this: tomorrow, I’m going to visit one of my clients. I ask: give me a report of the latest visits that colleagues from Rabobank have had with that client. Give me an overview of the client’s financial situation. Give me an overview of the relationship and an overview of the topics I should discuss.
Today, if I do that, I get something that is 80% correct. It should be 100% correct because we have all that data. And that’s just something we should do.
I’m challenging my people in that area. Legal reports directly to me, and so does Audit. I think that today, producing an audit report by applying AI technology should go much faster than it did in the past.
So I think my role is to learn, to challenge and to put a little bit of pressure on those kinds of topics.
Jeroen: As a side note, Claude got a lot of things wrong about you.
Stefaan: Yeah.
Jeroen: According to Claude, you never worked for Dexia. This is the paid version that we use at Leaders in Finance, so there were quite a lot of mistakes when I asked: who is Stefaan Decraene?
So I was happy to interview you to get the correct answers. But I have it in front of me, and there are quite a lot of mistakes.
When it comes to AI and the other topic I want to touch on briefly, AML, I would say this is one of the areas where there is massive potential. You still have—I don’t know exactly—5,000 people or more working on AML-related matters.
Is it true that AI offers massive potential when it comes to AML?
Stefaan: Yes, that’s true. It’s not only at Rabobank. I guess it’s the same at every bank. AML requires a lot of data, and a lot of data has to be analysed.
AI can play a very important role. Of the 14 topics I mentioned, I think two of them are in the FEC area.
The same can be said about contact centres and call centres, where everything can be prepared for you. If you have contact with a client, everything is in front of you: what the relationship is, what the question could be and even what the answers to the different questions could be.
The other area is everything related to coding. And then there is preparing credit documents and credit notes. Those are the four main topics in banking where many banks are making progress in applying AI and even moving towards agentic AI.
Jeroen: But going back to AML, do you think we can do it with far fewer people? I think everyone in financial services, including politicians, agrees that too many people are working on this.
Stefaan: I agree with that. The AML legislation and analysis are quite tough. I know the whole history behind it, but we have to do it in a much more efficient way.
AI can be an enabler in making that much more efficient. There is also a good discussion going on with the regulator about whether it should be more risk-based or rule-based.
Today, it is very rule-based. I think it should be risk-based. I think we are checking a little bit too much without creating much added value.
Jeroen: With AML, it will probably not become less rule-based, to be honest, but that’s my personal opinion.
Stefaan: I’m still working on that. I’m also involved with the European Banking Federation, and I think it’s one of the topics we are discussing with regulators.
Everybody is talking about less regulation and a more risk-based approach. And you’re right: if you look at AML, it’s not moving in the right direction. That’s the message we are giving to the different people involved.
Jeroen: At least when it comes to the first 40 large financial institutions, it will probably be ING, not Rabobank, that is part of that wave. So that gives you some time.
The other A is agriculture. Everyone around the world sees you as the number one, or as one of the most active players, in agriculture, agribusiness and everything related to it.
A while ago, I interviewed your other CEO at Rabobank New Zealand. We also spoke about the fact that, when it comes to financial services, it’s obviously great to finance large—very large—institutions. But we all know that these large institutions also have a love-hate relationship with climate change and biodiversity.
So how do you deal with that? Sustainability is a major topic for you, but at the same time, you like to finance—at least, that’s what I think—these very, very large agribusinesses. How do you balance the two?
Stefaan: Very good question. The easiest response to discussions with NGOs about financing agriculture would be to stop financing it.
I think this would be the most stupid decision we could take. If there is one bank—and I have worked at other banks—that has the knowledge of how to change agriculture and how to move towards regenerative agriculture, it is Rabobank.
We have a research team. We have the knowledge, not only in the Netherlands but also internationally.
So what we are going to do is talk to our clients and help them move towards a more regenerative way of doing business that is good for nature and the climate. That’s what we are pushing for.
As a cooperative bank, we sometimes even subsidise that. We offer lower margins on loans just to do that.
If we did not do it and stopped financing the sector, another bank would probably take over. That bank might not have the same knowledge of the sector, which is not a criticism because that knowledge has developed historically. But that would be a mistake.
So we want to remain involved to help make the transition. That’s one.
Secondly, a lot of people never see the other side of that question. Everybody talks about agriculture and its impact on the climate and nature, but there are still more than 600 million people who are underfed.
I think there is also a challenge in making agriculture much more efficient so that those people have greater access to food. And we certainly don’t have time to—
The energy transition is going much more quickly. But why? Because it has been subsidised. In agriculture, it’s much more complex for different reasons.
First of all, if you look at food culture, it’s completely different. So you don’t change a culture that quickly. Everybody says: perhaps you should eat less meat and more vegetables. Right, but you don’t change that from one day to the next.
Secondly, there is what I call the fair price of food. We can move towards more organic or sustainable food products, but that has a price. Who is going to pay for it throughout the chain?
Is it the farmers? Is it the food producers? Who is it? That’s also a whole discussion.
So we see some changes. We see improvement. But it will take some time.
Jeroen: We could talk for hours about this topic, also in relation to nitrogen, but I will skip that for now. It’s already being debated a lot.
One thing I do want to talk about when it comes to agro is water. I’ve learnt that water is a really important topic. Obviously—and this is not something I have only just learnt—it’s very important for all your businesses and, essentially, for human existence.
But you’re very active in the water space, right?
Stefaan: You’re very well informed. I’ll give you an example. The price we pay for water in Belgium is, I think, three or four times higher than the price you pay for water as a private individual in the Netherlands.
If I look at my home in Bruges, we recycle water. The Netherlands has a lot of expertise in keeping water out. I think the Netherlands can also build expertise in making our water system much more resilient and in treating water—
Stefaan: So that’s one. And secondly, if you achieve that, which would already be a very, very significant challenge, then make that kind of education as widely available as possible. So it is about both the quality and the quantity of education.
Jeroen: The full €200 million?
Stefaan: The full €200 million.
Jeroen: Okay. If your children ever listen to this, it’s pretty clear that it’s not going to them—at least, not that €200 million.
Do you have a second one? Do you have a somewhat unusual hobby or something you enjoy doing in your spare time? Not travelling or cooking, but something a little more surprising, perhaps even to your own people?
Stefaan: Something that I’m doing?
Jeroen: Yeah. Do you have a somewhat strange hobby or something you like that people would be surprised about? Something you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Stefaan: That’s an unusual question, which I’ve never received before, but I don’t do those kinds of unusual things.
To be honest, as a CEO, you don’t have a lot of free time. My free time is family time. I’m not at home that much.
So every Friday evening, I go out for dinner with my wife Catherine, and nobody else. And that’s our quality time.
Everybody talks to me about quality time with family and asks: what’s the right balance? I think we have found the right balance, but some people will not find our balance to be a good balance.
So that’s what we do. For me, there are no unusual sports or anything like that.
Jeroen: You’re not collecting something that nobody else collects? You’re not listening to a particular kind of music that nobody else listens to? I’m just suggesting some things here.
Stefaan: No. What I do is make my own Spotify playlists. I like to have a music playlist when I’m having dinner. I like to have a music playlist when I’m driving my car.
So perhaps that’s something I haven’t shared with many people: I make my own music playlists.
Jeroen: That’s great. That’s great. Thanks for sharing.
And the one you listen to when you’re driving is more upbeat?
Stefaan: It’s much more upbeat. It’s much more upbeat, but not too hard either.
Jeroen: The last unusual question is: what has been one of the scariest moments in your life?
Stefaan: The financial crisis.
During the financial crisis, first of all, I was quite young as a CEO. The Belgian bank was a very nice bank and was doing quite well, but it was part of the large Dexia Group.
And Dexia was hit quite hard by the financial crisis because it was financing the public sector with money coming from the capital markets.
That was the first time in my career that I was suddenly at the top. I had to visit all the regions. At the time, we had more than 500 or 600 branches, I think.
In the different regions, all the branch directors came together. I had to explain what was happening because they saw the trust of their clients, which they had built up over many years, flowing away. Dexia’s name was in the press, and it was not being presented in a very good light.
Standing on the stage and explaining what was happening and how to cope with it—when they were not responsible for those things at all—was probably one of the toughest moments I have experienced.
And to be honest, I was quite scared before the first of those sessions. But then you see that people adapt very quickly and respect the fact that you are also able to deliver bad news and explain what the response is, what the strategy is and how to cope with it.
Jeroen: The other thing I’ve asked about 209 CEOs is the same question: is there a particular book, or several books, that you enjoyed a lot, that taught you something or that you have given to people? Anything related to books?
Stefaan: I read during the summer, but I didn’t have much time because I was spending time with George and Jules, my twins.
I read Bart De Wever’s book about prosperity. It’s called Over welvaart. He describes the challenges facing Belgium and how Belgium ended up in its current situation. The country has many budgetary issues and a huge amount of debt.
It’s quite interesting because I also worked very hard here with Peter Wennink on the Wennink report.
Jeroen: Yeah, you were on the advisory board or something like that, right?
Stefaan: Yeah. I think it’s important because everything written down under Peter’s leadership about the different sectors in which we should invest is not for today. It’s for the future. It’s for future generations.
If we want to continue to have our welfare and prosperity, I think we should invest. If we want economic growth of 1.5%, we should invest in those new segments.
I’m working with Peter and with my colleagues in the financial world on the question of how we, as the financial sector, can help realise those plans.
And that, I think, is a very important role for me as a CEO, but also for the other CEOs. It’s not only about managing your bank. At the end of the day, we are responsible for society. We are part of society. How can we play a role in that?
Jeroen: Informally, I learnt that you said something along the lines of: Belgium doesn’t have money, while the Netherlands does have money but doesn’t invest it. That’s what you said earlier.
I’m quite well informed. It’s not difficult to speak to one or a couple of the 50,000 people. But this is something you can relate to. This is probably what you said, right?
Stefaan: No, but I have quite a lot of contact with different politicians. And I think that’s the message I gave.
Luckily, the Netherlands is in a good financial position. The Netherlands has produced many large and successful companies, as well as small and medium-sized companies. They have a lot of expertise and knowledge.
We are now at a crossroads where we should say: hey, in which direction are we going?
I think the Draghi plan and the Wennink plan are very clear. What should the direction be? That direction has been given.
I think we have the means. The public sector also has the means. I’m very pleased with the initiative to create the National Investment Institute, which will act as a kind of accelerator for investment in those kinds of segments.
So I think they are taking the right steps. It’s just like I said at the beginning: now they have to do it. And I think we, as the private sector, should continue to support them.
Jeroen: A couple of final questions, as we work towards the end of this interview. One of them is about the future.
You’re here as CEO of Rabobank until at least 2030, if I’m not mistaken. Is that what you signed up for? So I assume you will finish that term.
If you look a bit further ahead and everything goes well with you—I hope that’s the case, knock on wood—what are some things you would love to do, either personally or professionally?
Stefaan: After that period?
Jeroen: Yeah, after that.
Stefaan: For sure, with the twins. No, I would like to spend a little more time with my family. I would like to travel and do more sports.
I hope to stay healthy with my family and my friends because that is very, very important.
And I’m not someone who says: “You know what? Then I’ll work a little less and try to enjoy life.” That’s a bad formula.
I’m working hard today, but I’m also enjoying life today. It’s not that my life will start when I stop working.
Jeroen: You try to combine the two and find the right balance because having fun—
Would you still work in an executive role, or would you take on more non-executive roles, for example? Would you start a company, work for NGOs or do something else?
Stefaan: What I have in mind today is that I will probably take on some non-executive board positions, but not that many. One, and then probably something that is not in banking. A maximum of one or two, not that many anymore.
No more operational jobs after that. I will be 65 then.
Jeroen: The other thing I wanted to ask you, given that I’m an entrepreneur myself, is about something you have said in multiple interviews: “At the moment, I feel more like an entrepreneur than a banker.” I wasn’t sure what you meant by that.
Stefaan: Because a banker should be an entrepreneur. It’s not only about being a bank or whatever. We have a company, and that company should be profitable, serve its clients very well and create value for its stakeholders.
That’s the reason I say it. It’s not because we are a bank that we should not be entrepreneurial. I like that kind of entrepreneurial spirit in a bank.
I like people who take risks. I like people who come up with new ideas. I like people who step outside the box.
That’s what I like. That’s what I mean by entrepreneurial. In banking, you always say: “Yeah, you have too much regulation. You start there, and it stops there.”
No. Thinking outside the box should also be part of banking.
Jeroen: It’s potentially even more important today, given all the changes involving AI. But also, for example, I recently read that 80% of people in Ireland now have a Revolut account, right?
From a competitive perspective, it’s arguably one of the most important things: creating an entrepreneurial organisation.
Stefaan: Yeah. Being entrepreneurial means that you can react very quickly because, if you don’t react very quickly—
Jeroen: Speed, one of your S’s.
Stefaan: If you see the relevance today—and then we move to stablecoins, tokenisation, deposits and whatever—a lot is happening.
If you don’t have an entrepreneurial spirit, you will be too late. And that’s a little bit of what I’m trying to explain when I say: “I’m more of an entrepreneur than a banker.”
Entrepreneurs seem to be a little more agile, more aware of what is happening and more active.
Jeroen: Last question. You allowed me to ask a lot of questions, and you answered every question beautifully.
I’m very happy about that. I’m going to thank you in a moment. But before I do, is there something you thought you should have mentioned, something we should have discussed or a final thought you want to leave the listeners with?
This is probably the moment because I won’t ask any more questions after this.
Stefaan: No. The only question I had was: do you still like what you’re doing?
Jeroen: The answer is yes.
Stefaan: You mentioned the S for smile, and that’s the kind of atmosphere I would also like to create in the bank. I’m at the bank more than I’m at home, so it should also be fun.
You can work very hard. You can sometimes be very tough. But you can also always do it with a smile and create an atmosphere in which people feel at home.
Sometimes I step into the lift and say: “It’s good to be back home.”
And then my colleagues look at me and say: “This is not home; this is the bank.”
But the bank could feel a little bit like home for everybody. And that’s the atmosphere I would like to create in the bank.
Jeroen: I want to thank you and your colleague from Communications, who is also here, for preparing this so beautifully.
And I want to thank you for being such a great guest because this is what the podcast is about. It’s about the business matters and the hard topics, but it’s also about the personal things you’re willing to share.
So thank you so much. I have a signed copy of a book by Twan Huys, the Dutch journalist. I don’t know whether you’ve read the book.
It’s in Dutch. You’re fluent in Dutch; it’s your native language. So there’s a signed copy for you and your colleague, as well as the second 100 guests and their personal stories in this book.
I will give them to you right after I end this conversation.
Once again, the CEO of Rabobank, Stefaan Decraene. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Stefaan: Thank you.
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