Jeroen: Welcome, listeners, to a new episode of the Leaders in Finance podcast. Great that you’re tuning in again today. This week, our guest is Hugo Peek, the CEO of BNP Paribas Netherlands. Welcome, Hugo.
Hugo: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Jeroen: I’m very happy you’re here. Before we begin, I would like to thank our partners for their continued support: EY, Mogelijk Vastgoedfinancieringen, Duna and Lepaya. Thank you for being partners of Leaders in Finance.
As always, I’ll start by spelling my guest’s name. Hugo is H-U-G-O, and Peek is P-E-E-K.
Since January 2024, Hugo has been CEO of BNP Paribas Netherlands. He leads the Dutch corporate and investment bank and oversees BNP Paribas’s various businesses in the Netherlands.
Peek began his career at ABN AMRO in 1994. He spent most of the following twenty-five years there, apart from a period at Kempen & Co. At ABN AMRO, he held several leadership roles in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate banking. In his last role there, he was responsible for Corporate & Institutional Banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
After leaving ABN AMRO, Peek served as interim CFO of ParkBee. He was a partner and Head of Private Debt at DIF Capital Partners and a partner at ACE Advisory. He also held several supervisory board roles in private banking, impact investing and parking technology. In 2024, he returned to banking at BNP Paribas.
Finally, Hugo is 57 years old and lives with his wife in Amsterdam. Is that true, actually? Amsterdam?
Hugo: Yeah, that’s absolutely correct.
Jeroen: And you have two grown-up children. So, once again, thanks a lot, Hugo, for taking the time to speak to me and to Leaders in Finance.
When I was preparing for this interview, there were obviously many things that stood out that I found very interesting, which we’ll definitely come to during this episode. But one thing caught my eye: you’re a sports fan. You really like sports. Is that right?
Hugo: Well, I’d say I practise a bit of sport. I’m into running. I must confess, though, that I wasn’t a fan to begin with.
I do actually have a runner’s body. If you could see me now, you’d see a slender person. But the truth is, I kind of accidentally ran my first marathon. From then on, I was a lost cause.
Jeroen: Why was it accidental?
Hugo: Well, what happened was that I worked at ABN AMRO at the time. We had this client entertainment programme where we would invite our clients to run a marathon with ABN AMRO. In this case, it was the New York Marathon.
Even though I did a little bit of running, I wasn’t really a long-distance runner at all. So I made a deal with my boss at the time. I told him that if one of my clients accepted the invitation, I would run it too.
I think I approached four or five clients whom I knew were into running, but all of them turned us down. So I felt quite relieved. It meant I didn’t have to put the time into running.
But oddly—and this is a slightly longer anecdote—I was in the middle of negotiating a deal for a client of ours in Hong Kong. During these negotiations, the CEO of the company I was advising said he wanted a break and that he’d love to go for a run. He invited me along.
I had brought my running shoes, so we went for a run. At the end of it, he said, “Hugo, I recall that several months ago, you asked if I was interested in running the New York Marathon. Is that invitation still open?”
It turned out that we still had tickets. So when he accepted, I had to go too. That was the bet.
And so I ran my first marathon in New York. I must confess, it was almost a life-changing experience. I think the adrenaline kept me going for months. It was a very special experience, and I decided to keep running. That’s really it.
Jeroen: That’s a great story. I love it. How did you feel when you were at the finish line?
Hugo: I was absolutely exhausted. I felt more dead than alive, and I was very, very happy that I’d made it.
To me, running a marathon had always seemed like an almost unachievable feat. It’s such a long distance, 42 kilometres, and I never thought I could make it. So I felt quite special at the finish line, to be honest with you.
This is something that the Americans are very, very good at. When I crossed the line, there was this older lady, probably one of the New York running volunteers or something, who said, “Congratulations, sir. You’re a hero.”
I was just completely knackered, so I hardly heard what she said. But about ten metres after that, I got an apple and a banana. There was an older gentleman, who must have been a member of the same club, who also said, “Well done, sir. You’re a hero.”
Another ten or twenty metres further on, I got this blanket. It was quite cold, and somebody wrapped it around my shoulders. That person again said, “Sir, well done. You’re a hero.”
At that moment, I started thinking, “My God, I’m a hero.” It was just amazing.
Walking through the streets of New York, everybody was wearing their medal. It’s something I don’t think we would readily do in the Netherlands. But people were very, very happy to show their medal and demonstrate their achievement.
It gave me this sense of accomplishment and an adrenaline rush that, like I said, kept me going for months. It was a tremendous energy boost.
At the time, I was in pain, and I didn’t really think I was ever going to do it again. But I think three or four days later, I decided, “I’ve got to do this again.” So that’s how I got into it.
Jeroen: How many more did you do?
Hugo: I’ve done nine now. I’m actually in the middle of training for my tenth. I had my run this morning together with my wife.
In fact, she put me onto this because it will be her first. It’s a bit of a bucket-list thing for her.
Jeroen: Which one is it going to be?
Hugo: It’s going to be Amsterdam.
Jeroen: Amsterdam. Have you done Amsterdam before?
Hugo: I’ve run Amsterdam twice officially and once unofficially during COVID. You had these—what do they call them?—virtual marathons.
So I ran in Amsterdam again, but it was labelled the London Marathon. That almost went terribly wrong because I was running through the streets of Amsterdam, and I’d made a deal with my wife that she would be at certain points along the course to hand me some drinks and food. You’ve really got to keep hydrating throughout the race.
The London Marathon organisers had made sure they could track the runners, so spectators could also track them on their phones.
I was assuming that every five kilometres, my wife would be there with food and drinks and everything. My wife was indeed tracking my run, but what these people in London had done was plot my progress on the course in London.
It was almost as if I was reaching Hyde Park after five kilometres or something, whereas, in reality, I was running along the Amstel. So my wife had no idea where I was.
For the first twenty or twenty-five kilometres or so, I had nothing to drink or eat. I thought, “This is going to be a disaster.” So that was my third, unofficial Amsterdam marathon.
Jeroen: And New York was—and will probably always be—the most special one you’ve done?
Hugo: Yeah, New York is special. I also ran Boston, which was an amazing experience. That was the last one I ran.
But I have to confess that I felt terrible during the race, and I almost quit. I felt so bad afterwards that they had to pick me up in a wheelchair.
My wife and daughter had travelled with me. When they saw me in that wheelchair, they forbade me from ever running again. So, for a while, I stuck to that.
I haven’t done any intensive running in the past three years. But I’m ready for it now.
Jeroen: On the contrary, you’ve convinced your wife to join you.
Hugo: Like I said, it’s a bucket-list thing for her. I did promise that I’d try to help her along. But by now, I’ve done as much running as she has, so I’m ready for it too.
Jeroen: That’s great. I read in my preparation that you’ve already run a half marathon with her.
Hugo: That’s true, yes.
Hugo: Yeah, we crossed the finish line together last year, and I would really like to cross the finish line together again this year. That would be very nice.
Jeroen: Given your story about being a hero, you should tell her that when you finish, by the way. Don’t forget.
But adding to that, you know what the Americans say as well, right? Couples that do sport together stay together. So that’s a great one as well.
Hugo: I didn’t even know that, but I’ll remind my wife of it.
Jeroen: When it comes to running, what I hear—but maybe I’m wrong, so please correct me—is that there’s also this competitiveness. You want to make it. Is that true, first of all? And is that something you’ve always had in your work as well?
Hugo: I think if you asked the people around me, they would probably say that it’s true. And I probably wouldn’t deny it. I think I’m quite ambitious, but it’s not all that matters to me.
It is true that the reason I ran another marathon wasn’t because the experience itself was so great. It’s a really painful experience. During the race, at least, I keep thinking, “Why am I doing this?” It’s like suffering without end.
But I’m trying to beat my personal best and put in a better time with every subsequent marathon. It’s a bit the same at work. I always think we can do things better and faster, have happier clients and do bigger deals.
But again, I would say that this shouldn’t distract too much from other things that I find equally important, which are much more mundane.
Jeroen: An interesting thing is that you’re not beating other people, like in a match. You’re beating yourself. You’re fighting yourself during a run, right? You’re not trying to be faster than someone else.
Hugo: Yeah, that’s true. When I watch a football match and see hooligans and the violence associated with that, I’m completely baffled. I just cannot understand it.
It’s that kind of fanaticism you sometimes see in sport that’s very alien to me.
Jeroen: Another parallel with running, looking at your work, is obviously being a marathon runner rather than a sprinter, right? It’s something you hear a lot in relation to work and careers. Does that apply to you as well?
Are you someone who puts in a lot of hours to get it done and is really there for the long run?
Hugo: Yeah, I think it requires a significant degree of discipline. I get up at six in the morning. It’s the only time I have available to do the required training. Otherwise, it would be at the expense of my work or other things.
So, indeed, it requires sticking to a schedule and living healthily. I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, for example, also out of solidarity with my wife. She stopped drinking. I never drank a lot; I’m quite disciplined about that too. And now I don’t drink at all.
It’s also things like eating in moderation. I think that kind of discipline is important at work as well.
At the end of the day, I think hard work is at least as important as talent. I also think it’s necessary to set an example. If I don’t do it, how can I ask that of my team?
Jeroen: Do you have people in your management team here in the Netherlands, or in the wider BNP Paribas Netherlands team, who also run? Do you run with colleagues as well?
Hugo: I used to, yes. There used to be quite a few colleagues, and there are still a few former colleagues I occasionally run with.
Right now, not at BNP Paribas, although there is a colleague who I know will be running the Amsterdam Marathon too. We check in with one another: “How many kilometres did you do this morning?” Questions like that.
And it’s funny: you start comparing notes on whether you take gels during the race, how many and at what intervals. It almost becomes a bit of a science.
I quite enjoy that, particularly when you have someone across the table who’s been having the same experience. Then it feels a bit like brothers in arms.
Jeroen: Well, nowadays, so many people run. There are a lot of brothers.
You’ll get my two tips for running. Number one, by far: don’t get injured. Especially when you get older, as long as you don’t get injured, you’ll be successful. So don’t run too much. That’s my number one tip.
The second tip probably doesn’t really apply to you, but every kilo is like a carton of milk or something else you need to carry. Every single kilo less makes things a lot easier. Anyway, those are my two running tips.
BNP Paribas Netherlands: you’re running part of the business of this very large bank, which is probably the largest bank in Europe, depending on how you count, or one of the largest financial institutions in Europe. What’s it like to run a business that’s part of such a large institution?
Hugo: Well, it’s a large institution, but I think that size comes with a lot of advantages.
If you look at the global financial system, we’ve been through quite a few ups and downs over the past few decades. In general, I think being a large organisation comes with significant responsibilities.
It’s the reason we’re regulated institutions and why we’re so relevant to society: making sure we’re able to provide the money for corporates and other clients to finance their investments.
If you look at the investments needed to keep us going as an economy and as a society, they tend to be very sizeable. Think of infrastructure, defence, housing, innovation and technology.
We can talk for a very long time about start-ups and scale-ups. They usually require sums of money that carry higher risk but are smaller in amount. At the end of the day, though, their aim is also to grow and become bigger.
If you look at the AEX, the top thirty companies in the Netherlands, they’re all very sizeable companies. They require significant resources and turn to capital markets and banks to fund their investments.
Fewer and fewer players have the ability to play a part in that. I think BNP Paribas is one of those.
I regard the financial system as equally important to a country’s infrastructure as its roads, tunnels and what have you. So I like being part of that.
BNP Paribas is the largest international financial institution in the Netherlands. Being part of this global institution means we have this network available to our international clients in the Netherlands. We have expertise in many different areas, and we have the balance sheet size.
I think those are significant advantages. To me, it’s a privilege to be part of that.
Jeroen: And how centrally managed is this organisation? When you’re in France, everybody always says, “All roads lead to Paris.” Is it a very centrally organised business, or do you have a lot of room to manoeuvre locally?
Hugo: I sometimes think we shouldn’t judge too much on the basis of a bias towards a certain culture or country. I do get the question quite often: “What’s it like to work for a French bank? What are the French like?”
Jeroen: Good questions.
Hugo: I think my answer would be that we’re a European bank, first and foremost.
Maybe just anecdotally, because those questions are perfectly understandable—I had them myself when I interviewed for this role—it struck me during my interviews in Paris that every single interviewer started by saying, “We’re a European bank.”
All the interviews were conducted in English. Not once was I asked if I spoke French. I speak a little bit.
Jeroen: Do you, by the way?
Hugo: A little bit, but not enough to conduct a complex negotiation. For that, I really have to switch to English.
But every single interviewer said, “We’re a European bank, first and foremost.” Our strategy is very Europe-centred, obviously with very large satellites in the US and APAC, but we’re firmly grounded in Europe.
If you look at the history of the European Union, for example, it’s really the French who started it. This notion of strategic autonomy in Europe is, I think, very much supported by France in seeking international alliances across the European Union. I sense that in our organisation.
And on the point of being a centralised organisation, I would say that every large corporate, whether it’s a large bank or another large company, needs a degree of bureaucracy to function.
If you want to organise, in this case, 185,000 people, you need procedures, rules, systems, lines of authority and a hierarchy. I don’t think that’s much different from any other large organisation.
Jeroen: Let’s make it very practical, because this is a great answer, but let’s really focus on the Netherlands now.
If you want to acquire another business in the Netherlands, a small financial institution in one of the areas you’re active in—and we’re going to talk about all those areas, because you operate in many different markets—would you always call Paris first, or would you develop a whole business case?
Maybe it only takes a board meeting and someone says, “Yes, okay.” Or is it all prepared together with Paris? How does that work?
Hugo: Well, my mandate is a mandate for growth. I’m tasked with ensuring that the company keeps growing, not necessarily aggressively, but in a transparent and stable manner. Part and parcel of growth is also inorganic growth.
So I think I’m expected to continue identifying opportunities for growth: doing more business with existing clients, expanding our universe of clients and potentially teaming up with, forming partnerships with or acquiring other companies. I’m expected to identify those opportunities.
Jeroen: Is that a Dutch team working on it, or also a French team? Just to go back to my initial question: how closely do you work with headquarters, or do you mainly work on that here in the Netherlands?
Hugo: I identify those opportunities together with the team in the Netherlands. They identify opportunities too. We have more than 1,500 people working for us here in the Netherlands.
Jeroen: 1,500, right?
Hugo: 1,500, yeah. And let’s face it: if you’re active in this market, you know what’s going on. To me, it would almost be a sin not to. If you don’t know what the competition is up to, you’re not firmly grounded in the market.
Once we have an opportunity, it’s something we have to develop with our colleagues in Paris.
Jeroen: What was the latest example of what you called inorganic growth? What was your last acquisition here in the Netherlands?
Hugo: We announced the acquisition of Athlon, the car leasing business, some time ago. I think it must have been somewhere in the first half of this year. That acquisition closed a month ago, so we’re literally in the process of starting the integration now.
It’s a very significant business. Athlon, I think, is the fifth-largest car leasing company in the Netherlands. Arval, our own car leasing business, is the fourth-largest. Together, we’ll be number two, but with only a very small gap to number one. And the ambition is there, absolutely.
Jeroen: Some organic growth there.
Hugo: Definitely, yeah.
Jeroen: That’s great. What are all the different fields you’re active in? Leasing is one; institutional banking or investment banking is another. Could you elaborate on that a little?
Hugo: It’s going to be a long list, which will be quite tedious and boring, I think. So the easiest thing to say is that we do everything apart from retail banking. The only thing we don’t have is a service offering for retail clients.
Everything else we kind of do, from asset management to wealth management, leasing, Corporate & Institutional Banking, custody and even real estate. So there are a lot of activities.
Jeroen: Do you have a director or managing director for every single part, or is there someone who oversees all these different divisions?
Hugo: All these activities are organised into three different divisions. Every activity is organised in a dedicated entity, and every entity has its own CEO. Together, we form the executive committee in the Netherlands, which I chair.
We look at cooperation between these entities at all levels, whether that’s in the back office, by sharing services in HR or compliance, for example, or in the front office, by engaging in what we call an “all sales community”, making sure the commercial teams talk to each other.
You’ve probably heard this before, but we call that cross-selling. At the end of the day, there are always one or two people who coordinate the relationship with our clients. They oversee our total offering as a bank.
Jeroen: So, for example, you provide corporate lending to a certain business, but the CEO is also a wealth management client. At some point, you might suggest that leasing is an option. So someone coordinates those three relationships in this case.
Hugo: Couldn’t have put it better.
Jeroen: Okay, well, thank you. I was curious: those 1,500 people who are active locally, what are they generally working on?
Hugo: Like I said, we offer the whole range of banking products, including insurance, by the way. I should have added that at the start. Whether it’s leasing, factoring, real estate or insurance, it’s really across that range.
What’s perhaps relevant is that we try to focus their efforts on growth. We’ve identified five growth drivers within our business, and everybody is aligned with those growth themes.
Very briefly, one important theme for us is what we call the corridors: the international companies based in the Netherlands.
Another is that we concentrate heavily on AI and innovation, clearly because of the strength of the semiconductor sector in the Netherlands, but also because of the trends in AI.
A third is that we’ve noticed our corporate and institutional bank has really covered the upper end of the corporate market and the financial institutions market, whereas many of our other activities in the Netherlands cover more of the mid-market.
We’re trying to bring those closer together by concentrating more on private equity-owned companies and family-owned companies in the upper mid-market.
Another trend, which is visible every day of the week when you read the newspapers, is the pensions transition. We’re moving from a defined benefit to a defined contribution system in the Netherlands. That means almost two trillion in pension assets have to transition, which presents a significant opportunity for BNP Paribas.
Lastly, and probably one of the most important growth drivers, is what we loosely label infrastructure. It’s a bit of a catch-all term, but we see developments in defence, the energy transition and housing as important growth drivers for our firm.
Jeroen: Is BNP Paribas Netherlands, in your view, big or small in the Netherlands? In other words, do you think you could compete across the board with the three major Dutch banks at the same level in the future?
You already do, obviously—that’s what you would answer—but at the same scale?
Hugo: Well, BNP Paribas in the Netherlands isn’t much smaller than, for example, the wholesale operations of ABN AMRO. I think we’re pretty much level there already.
What we do note is that most Dutch banks have lost some market share since the crisis, particularly ABN AMRO. Much of the space vacated since the global financial crisis has been taken by American competitors.
On the one hand, I’d say that’s a bit of a shame. I do think that, in times of crisis, it’s good to know you have strong relationships with banks that are close to you. Some of the Dutch banks have lost a bit of their position there, probably willingly so.
ABN AMRO has certainly been emphasising growth in other areas, in retail and wealth management, and less so in Corporate & Institutional Banking. But that void has really been filled by the American banks and by us.
Jeroen: Isn’t there a huge opportunity for you now, given the political climate and the fact that everybody wants to be more European? You say everyone in your organisation calls it a European organisation. Isn’t this a massive opportunity at the moment?
Hugo: Yes. This was already the case before Trump. I would say we compete more with other international institutions, notably the American ones, which I think are leading the pack.
But since the current US administration came to power, we’ve seen our clients pay more attention to diversifying their financial services providers. And that does play into our hands.
Jeroen: So, to put my previous question differently: do you think BNP Paribas could be much bigger than it currently is, also in areas other than investment banking? In five or ten years, could you be twice or four times as big as you are now in the Netherlands?
Hugo: If I concentrate on growing organically, first and foremost, I’d say we can grow by at least another 30–40% over the next five years. That’s also our aim. I don’t think we’re out to obliterate any of the other financial institutions.
Jeroen: And they’re also your clients, by the way.
Hugo: They’re important clients. But more importantly, as I said earlier, I believe the financial players in the Dutch market are an indispensable part of the financial infrastructure that keeps the country going. We need each other from time to time.
If you look at our infrastructure needs, Peter Wennink wrote this report with the subtitle “A strong Netherlands in a relevant Europe”. I think that interconnection with Europe is critical, simply because the investments in infrastructure run into hundreds of billions. That’s so much that you need more than just the Dutch financial institutions.
Jeroen: What’s your personal opinion about the major Dutch banks? One of them was your employer for a very long time. You just mentioned them.
When it comes to leaving the investment banking space—although “leaving” is probably too strong—they were much stronger in the past. Let’s put it that way.
A lot of people complain that we don’t have the really big investment banks we potentially could have had if certain banks had merged, for example. And now the major investment banking players are no longer based in the Netherlands.
Hugo: It’s funny you say that a lot of people complain about it. I think there were probably—
Jeroen: A lot of bankers do.
Hugo: Bankers, maybe. That’s a bad word.
Jeroen: Society, maybe not.
Hugo: Exactly. That’s exactly where I was going.
Jeroen: For example, Gerrit Zalm was interviewed here. He said, “Well, I couldn’t care less.”
Hugo: Yes. Interestingly, when I returned to ABN AMRO, I had my interview with Gerrit Zalm over breakfast. At that point, I was being recruited as head of the investment banking business.
I asked him exactly the same question: “Why would I do that if you, as CEO, don’t consider it an important activity?” But at the time, he said, “Well, you’ll have carte blanche.”
So, Gerrit, if you’re listening to this, I remember it vividly.
What I would say is that, indeed, more people complained about investment banking than complained about not having it. Its reputation, its riskiness and the perceived pay of investment bankers all contributed to the profession becoming extremely unpopular.
Jeroen: So was it more politically driven than driven by business considerations? Or were we simply unable to compete with the Americans or other big players?
Hugo: No. If we go back twenty years, I’d say ABN AMRO, ING and even Rabobank were prominent players in this field.
I’m quite happy to share an anecdote about my interview with my current CEO. When I had my first conversation with him, I thought I was going to have to explain what was on my CV.
Before I could get started, he said, “Hang on. I’d like to tell you a story about the merger between BNP and Paribas in 2000.”
At the time, the top hundred people from each institution were invited to an off-site meeting. Those two hundred people were collectively asked: “Which global financial institution would you like to compare yourselves to as a shining example?”
He confided in me that the outcome of that exercise was that the merged BNP and Paribas wanted to look like ABN AMRO. So that tells you something about the stature of that business in those days. That’s only twenty-six years ago.
Jeroen: It was a top-twenty or top-twenty-five player in the world, right?
Hugo: Yeah. So, no, I don’t think we would inevitably have lost that competition.
I think it’s the course of events we’ve seen in history: partly a result of the takeover of ABN AMRO, partly a result of the global financial crisis, but certainly also the direction taken by subsequent generations of management, who put their priorities elsewhere.
I do believe public opinion and political pressure played quite an important role there.
Jeroen: Are you—maybe it’s too strong a word—a bit sad about the history of the bank where you spent a quarter of a century?
Hugo: To make this a bit more personal, my CV shows twenty-three years at ABN AMRO. I look
Hugo: I’d say it was what we call a warm nest, a close-knit family. I have a brother and a sister, and we’re quite close.
I think my father essentially moved to the east for love. He fell in love with my mum, and that was it. But he continued to work in the western part of the Netherlands, which was also where a large part of our family lived. So we spent a lot of time there.
Looking back at my upbringing, I’d say my parents always tried very hard to make sure we had the opportunities and means to do the things we really wanted, provided we did our best. That encouragement is something I picked up from them, and we try to give our children the same.
Jeroen: You mentioned a brother and a sister. Where do you come in the order?
Hugo: I’m the oldest.
Jeroen: You’re the oldest? And then your brother or your sister?
Hugo: I’m the oldest, then my brother, and my sister is the youngest.
Jeroen: What did your parents do for work?
Hugo: My dad worked in engineering, and my mum worked in nursing for a while. Unfortunately, my dad passed away just when I came back from the UK.
Jeroen: Very young, then, probably.
Hugo: He was 43, if I remember correctly. I was eighteen, my brother was fifteen and my sister was twelve. It had a huge impact on our family.
My mum was devastated. I think we were all devastated. My brother and sister were still living at home, and I’d just moved out.
It was hard. I was the oldest in the family, and it was difficult to stay away. I felt this responsibility as the oldest son to look after my mum, brother and sister too. So that was an impactful period, yeah.
Jeroen: Probably the most impactful event in your life, I imagine, at that age?
Hugo: Probably, yeah. The sense of responsibility it instilled in me is something that stayed with me. At the same time, the resilience shown by my sister, brother and mum also stayed with me.
When my dad died, there wasn’t much of a pension, and my mother wasn’t working. So you’re really thrown back onto the basics.
What was important was the way the family stuck together. To me, that means family values are absolutely critical. They’re the most important thing.
Jeroen: It’s a strange thought that you’re now much older—fourteen years older—than your dad was when he died, right?
Hugo: Yeah. When I was 44 or 45—I can’t remember exactly—I realised I was older than my dad had been.
It’s strange because, in my mind, my dad is still this gentleman I had mature conversations with. He kind of grew older with me. When I was 44, he was still much older than me in my mind.
That’s never gone away. When I think of my dad now, even though I’m—what is it?—thirteen years older than he ever became, he’s still the senior, if you like.
Jeroen: It’s strange. Suddenly, you’re at that age, and that’s probably how your children see you.
Hugo: It’s an odd sensation.
Jeroen: It feels a bit uncomfortable to ask, but to get the full picture: was his death completely unexpected, or did you see it coming?
Hugo: It was a car accident. Unfortunately, it was a single-vehicle accident. It was completely out of the blue, so it was a huge shock.
Jeroen: An incredible experience. What were the other big lessons? Family values were one. Given how long ago it was, you must have reflected on it many times.
What else did you take from all that sadness? Were there any small silver linings, like the one you just mentioned?
Hugo: My dad was a very wise man. He was always dressed in a suit, which I thought was a bit over the top at the time. As I said, he was wise, but he wasn’t very talkative. He was quieter than my mum.
One thing I remember from his funeral was the enormous number of people who turned up. I’d never realised the extent of his network.
I’d always thought he was quite a quiet person, not someone who would be surrounded by hundreds of friends or be the partygoer. So the large turnout at his funeral came as a complete surprise.
But the lesson was that he was appreciated for being utterly reliable and honest. He was an intelligent man. Those were all traits I hadn’t fully appreciated until then.
It made me realise that we don’t all have to be loudmouths, advertising our successes and what have you. That kind of modesty was shown to be hugely appreciated. And that stayed with me.
Jeroen: That’s a great lesson. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Coming back to you, were you able to function relatively normally afterwards? You came back from the UK, this happened, and then you went to study. Or did it take a few years before you were able to do anything?
Hugo: No. As I said, one thing that stayed with me was the resilience of the family. I really think we shouldn’t underestimate the strength we have as people.
I’m not sure whether it’s appropriate to say this, but we’re living in a time when security isn’t a given. Suddenly, the government is advising us to keep supplies for eight days. There are threats related to climate or war. That’s when our resilience is called upon.
I think these life-changing events don’t just test people’s resilience; they also help build it. I’m quite convinced that, as people, we’re capable of so much more than we sometimes think.
I think the same happened then. Looking at my brother and sister, how they coped, and my mother too, I can only admire that. Sometimes, you do become stronger.
I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but you become stronger because you’ve experienced a setback and know you can carry on.
Jeroen: I can totally see that. It also raises the question of how you prepare for something so extreme, comparing what happened to you personally with the bigger picture you mentioned: preparing for war or something like that.
There are many things you can prepare for, but when it really happens, you’ll see who’s resilient and who isn’t, and whether societies, individuals or groups of people are resilient.
It’s very hard to prepare for a nuclear attack or a major disruption to the energy supply. How would BNP Paribas, Rabobank, ABN AMRO or any other large financial institution really respond? It’s hard to prepare for.
Hugo: That’s true. We’ll only find out when push comes to shove. But in that sense, I’m quite optimistic. I think when push does come to shove, we’ll rise to the occasion.
Jeroen: There you go.
What kind of student were you, both in the UK and during your studies afterwards? Were you always very disciplined, or were you someone who partied and drank a lot? Where were you on that spectrum between being very wild and very disciplined?
Hugo: I was squarely in the middle.
Jeroen: Squarely in the middle. That’s such a diplomatic answer.
Hugo: I can give you an example. In my final year of secondary school, people were betting that I’d fail my exams because I wasn’t putting in enough time and effort. But I passed anyway.
By and large, though, I was a relatively serious student. I worked during my studies as well.
Jeroen: What kind of jobs?
Hugo: All kinds of odd jobs. I worked in a butcher’s shop, cleaned hospitals and sold sweets in a shop. I did lots of little things.
Jeroen: This might be a bit of a sharp turn, but one thing I don’t want to forget in this conversation is that you travelled through Jordan with your wife on a camel. Is that right?
Hugo: You’ve checked my LinkedIn profile.
Jeroen: We checked everything we could find online, but this was something I thought would be interesting to talk about.
Hugo: I think that picture doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s a LinkedIn picture showing us on a camel, but the story is much simpler.
We booked a camel tour through the Wadi Rum desert. For those who’ve ridden camels before, it can be quite painful. After a couple of hours, my back and legs really started aching. I had to get off to get my blood flowing again.
Our guide didn’t speak a word of English, so I kept trying to gesture that I needed to dismount because I was in pain. No one else was, by the way, so I was really being childish about it.
At some point, he finally understood that I needed to get off. To get some feeling back in my body, I thought I’d go for a very quick run.
But we were in the middle of the desert, and this guy probably felt very responsible for our safety and comfort. When I ran off, he was completely bewildered.
My wife and daughter were watching and thought it was quite funny, so they took a picture of me running away in the desert. It was quite a funny picture.
I later posted it on LinkedIn with an anecdote to celebrate my first year at BNP Paribas and my return to banking. Because I quickly got back on the camel, of course.
Jeroen: You used it as a metaphor for that first year: adventurous at first, then physically tough, but ultimately giving you new energy. That was the metaphor you were using. Is that right?
Hugo: Yeah.
Jeroen: That’s great. Thanks for sharing.
At Leaders in Finance, there are a couple of subjects we always return to. One of them is books. First of all, do you like reading?
Hugo: Yes, I used to devour books. So much so that I could become completely distracted by a book, lose track of a conversation and forget everything happening around me.
That’s changed a bit. I don’t read that much anymore. I’m a bit of a news addict, so I read the news channels all the time.
Occasionally, I try to make time for a book at the weekend or during holidays, but it’s not that frequent anymore.
Jeroen: At what point in your life did you read so much?
Hugo: Probably until my mid-thirties. I was really into those big Cold War conspiracy novels: Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum and Leon Uris. I loved those.
Jeroen: If you were to share a book or a couple of books here, would they be those books or something else?
Hugo: If I think of books that really had an impact, I’d probably have to go back a little further. There was this little book, and I’ve forgotten the author, so you’d have to look that up.
It was called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Many of us read it at college. It was about this bird, this seagull.
Jeroen: Richard Bach, perhaps?
Hugo: That does ring a bell. I last read it forty years ago, but it stayed with me.
It’s about this seagull in a flock where everybody flies in the same direction and learns to fly using the same methods. Jonathan Livingston went his own way. He didn’t see flying just as a means of finding food or escaping danger, but as an art and a way of living—his own way of living.
That stayed with me. I thought it was beautifully written, almost mesmerising. Occasionally, particularly with younger people like my children, I’ll ask, “Have you read Jonathan Livingston Seagull?”
Jeroen: But you haven’t reread it?
Hugo: No, I haven’t. But, as I said, it’s not a big book, if I remember correctly.
Jeroen: Maybe you’d be disappointed if you read it now. You read it in a certain context, and you were probably a completely different person in some ways. Or perhaps not at all.
Hugo: That’s true. But I read it at an age when that innocence and idealism were probably fed by the book, and vice versa. I think that’s great. That’s what I like about youth.
Jeroen: Are there other books you’d like to mention, or shall we leave it at this one?
Hugo: I did think of another book I read not so long ago. It’s called The Camino.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to walk the Camino. I thought I’d read the book because I was interested in the walk, but it turned out to be a completely different kind of book.
It’s called The Camino, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, but it’s a completely different story. It’s about a woman whose husband was killed while walking the Camino. In trying to find out what happened on that walk, she uncovers a past her husband had that she knew nothing about.
I found that extremely intriguing. It relates to what happened in the former Yugoslavia, so it’s also a bit of a history book.
It’s one for people interested not just in the Camino, but also in a thriller and a bit of geopolitics. It’s a very nice book.
Jeroen: Should I ask again: any other books, or are these the two?
Hugo: There’s another author whose books intrigued me: Pieter Waterdrinker. He writes about Russia.
I started reading his books around the time Putin invaded Ukraine. They’re great for understanding the history, mentality and culture of Russia and the Russian people a bit better.
He’s written great books, I believe, from within. He lived in Russia, in Moscow, for a long time. I think they’re very worthwhile reads.
Jeroen: The other part that always comes back in the Leaders in Finance podcast is the unusual questions. One of them is about the scariest moment in your life.
I assume—but I might be completely wrong—that it was the moment you heard about your dad. But perhaps that wasn’t the scariest moment, so I’m just checking.
Hugo: There have been quite a few scary moments in my life, to be honest. The biggest shock was definitely my dad passing away. But the scary moments were those when I felt very alone.
They might not have lasted long, but there have been a few. One of the reasons I started a career in banking was that I got an internship in Sydney, Australia. It must have been around 1990, well before mobile phones, the internet and what have you.
I remember landing in Sydney. Even though my English was perfectly fine, I literally knew nobody. It was also literally the other side of the world.
On that first day, I felt very, very alone. I thought, “What am I doing here? Why did I travel to the other side of the world? What for?” I felt extremely lonely.
It didn’t last long. I think that same day, a note was slipped under my hotel room door, inviting me to a get-together the following day. From then on, it was perfectly fine.
But I still sometimes have similar experiences when I arrive somewhere or attend an event and wonder, “Why did I get myself into this?” Like the marathon I mentioned earlier, thinking, “Why am I doing this?”
Jeroen: “This is a bloody nightmare.” Was that a lonely moment as well?
Hugo: Yes. I was a little scared. I felt very vulnerable.
Jeroen: Are these moments you simply dislike, or do you feel very good afterwards? Are they a source of energy afterwards as well?
Hugo: If you asked me about the highlights of my life, I’d also mention my internship in Sydney.
Jeroen: So those lonely, scary moments can also turn out to be some of the best?
Hugo: Yeah. I think it’s partly about overcoming them and settling in. There’s probably an element of homesickness involved.
They’re moments when you haven’t quite figured out how you’re going to manage. Those are the moments I find scary.
Jeroen: Do you seek them out, or do they just happen in the context of your life at that point?
Hugo: No, I wanted to seek them out.
Jeroen: What’s the next one going to be, then?
Hugo: Look, I ended up in Sydney because, during the interviews for those internships, I was asked, “Would you like a really challenging, substantive and highly valued internship in Brussels? Or would you rather have this mundane, less exciting and less appreciated internship in Sydney?”
I immediately said, “I’ll go to Sydney.” I wanted to go as far away as possible and find something exotic. So, yes, I seek those experiences out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t encounter those moments.
The next one? I really don’t know. But you’re right: these are the experiences that turn out to be the most exciting. Once you know that, you seek them out.
Jeroen: One of my guests a very long time ago, who was then CEO of Euronext, said that the darkest moments are ultimately those when you know the most beautiful moments will follow.
I’m paraphrasing. I don’t remember exactly how he put it, but I think that resonates with you.
Hugo: There are moments that stay with you, which you’ll look back on and either have learned from or cherish.
Jeroen: Another unusual question: I’m putting €200 million into your personal account today, but you have to spend it as soon as possible, let’s say within a week. Where does it go?
Spending means not investing. A lot of people in finance say, “I’m going to invest it and do things with the interest.” But you have to spend it.
Hugo: That’s a big spoiler, because that was exactly going to be my answer.
Jeroen: Well, you can, but it’s even nicer if you just spend it. You can give that answer as well. These are the only questions you get beforehand.
Hugo: You’ve probably guessed, and I imagine most people who’ve taken part in this series are in a similar position: we’re not poor. Financial executives tend to be paid relatively well, and that’s no different for me.
If you asked me whether there’s anything I really need to be happy, my answer would be no. We have everything.
The older you get—another cliché—the more you appreciate time with your family. Playing cards with my daughter and son at home doesn’t cost anything, and those are happy moments. There are many things like that.
I wouldn’t know what to spend €200 million on that I’m not already spending money on to make me happy. So I would have said that I’d probably give a chunk away and put another chunk into some kind of fund.
Jeroen: That’s the question, then: who would you give it to? Where would it go? That probably tells us something about you as well.
Hugo: I’d give it to family and charity. I’d probably donate a much larger amount to the school I mentioned. There are a few charities my wife and I are involved with.
Jeroen: For example?
Hugo: The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
What particularly interested me is that, if you want background information, it’s quite difficult to find. People read headlines. You’re inundated with Twitter or X messages, Instagram and Snapchat. It’s all very brief, and these days it’s much harder to tell what’s true and what isn’t.
If you want to watch a documentary, you get the obligatory Steve Jobs one on Netflix. I think that’s a shame.
We miss a lot of background, nuance and different perspectives on topics that don’t make the headlines or attract millions of viewers, which is what Netflix is all about. It wants mass audiences.
For that reason, I think the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is a fantastic phenomenon.
Jeroen: If I understand correctly, it’s almost driven by a democratic idealism: wanting to support really good media that highlight things that aren’t covered by the mainstream. Almost a search for truth, to put it very philosophically.
Hugo: I think that’s very true. There are two sides to it. If you speak to the people behind the festival, you’ll probably hear that documentaries are an art form, a means of expression for artists.
I particularly like and value the educational aspect: going into depth, analysing things and broadening your horizons. That’s very valuable.
I’m not sure whether the current media provide enough of that, because it’s all so quick and fleeting.
Jeroen: Your wife has come up a couple of times during this conversation. She’s also quite visible publicly and very active in business. How did you manage raising children alongside two very demanding careers?
Hugo: We had a bit of help. We had someone in the house during the day, and our children went to daycare as well.
One of the more valuable lessons throughout my career and life was that I didn’t spend enough time with my son when I was living in London and he was still in the Netherlands.
My wife and I have therefore made a point of ensuring that, either together or taking turns, we’re at home enough not to be absent parents. I’m relatively disciplined about that. I always took my daughter to school, and my wife made sure she spent time with her too.
I wouldn’t say it was an easy balance. But looking back, now that both children have left home—it’s another cliché, but it happened so quickly—I sometimes think, “Did we do enough? Did we spend enough time together?”
Jeroen: Thanks a lot for sharing. I think that will resonate with a lot of people in C-level roles. If you want to be good at something, in this case your work, you probably need to spend a lot of hours on it. It’s hard to combine that with your personal life.
How you manage it is different for everyone, but I think it resonates with a lot of people.
The last of the unusual questions: do you have a somewhat unusual hobby or something you do in your own time that most people, or perhaps most of your colleagues, don’t know about?
Hugo: Should I come clean and tell the audience that I like Sudoku puzzles?
Jeroen: Ah, wow. We have something in common, then, apart from running, which I mentioned before the conversation. I love Sudoku.
Hugo: I can talk to you about it.
Jeroen: Most people would probably ask, “What’s a Sudoku?” Let’s explain that first.
Hugo: You have to arrange the numbers one to nine horizontally, vertically and in boxes of nine cells, without any number appearing more than once in each row, column or box.
I like immersing myself in these puzzles. It’s fantastic. Time flies. I get into a puzzle, and before I know it, an hour or two has passed. It’s amazing.
I’ve been doing it for quite a few years. My children and wife now know that, on a Sunday morning, I’ll probably spend an hour or even two doing a Sudoku puzzle.
Jeroen: It’s funny because nobody around me understands why I like it. But the numbers eighty-one and forty-five will mean something to you: there are eighty-one cells to fill with the numbers one to nine, and forty-five is the total in one box.
Anyway, we won’t bore everyone with it. But for me, and I think you’ll agree, the best thing is that you have no opportunity to think about anything else while you’re doing it.
Hugo: Very true.
Jeroen: With running, you can still think about other things. Here, you need to focus.
Hugo: I become completely absorbed in the puzzle, so it takes my mind off everything else. I know it’s solitary, which is why I was a little afraid to admit it. But it’s complete relaxation for me.
Jeroen: That’s great. Thanks for sharing.
A couple of final questions from me. There’s always so much more to talk about, but there are a few things I definitely want to ask.
For a long time, when people spoke about BNP Paribas in the Netherlands, the tagline was “the best-kept secret”. I don’t remember whether it was a marketing term or simply something people said a lot, but I’ve heard it many times.
Was it marketing, or was it used internally and semi-externally? And is it still a best-kept secret, or does that no longer hold true?
Hugo: I’d like to think it’s not a secret. Quite a few years ago, if someone asked me about BNP Paribas, I’d have called it a sleeping giant. It was a very big bank, but not a very well-known one.
We’d come across it occasionally, but not everywhere all the time. I don’t hear that much anymore.
When I talk to fellow bankers at other institutions, they tell me we’re the bank they see most. We probably have the widest product range of any bank in the Netherlands, including the Dutch banks. We’re active in more fields than anyone else, mostly in market-leading positions.
I think that’s an enormous achievement by BNP Paribas, the team and my predecessor. When I joined BNP Paribas, I don’t think that description really applied anymore.
Now we’re a few years further along, and I’d say we’re one of the most prominent institutions around. We see that reflected in our move to the Zuidas. We have a new head office.
Jeroen: It’s not a secret anymore. That’s the bottom line.
Hugo: It’s a prominent location on the Zuidas. We have lots of people working with us and a very large client base. If we’re still not known, something’s wrong.
Jeroen: No longer a best-kept secret.
My last two questions before I thank you. One thing I remember very clearly from this conversation is that you mentioned idealism a couple of times in different contexts.
That intrigues me because it feels as though you might also have enjoyed—or perhaps still want to do, or already do alongside your job—something more idealistic than your current work.
Hugo: As a banker, you sometimes get accused of having a meaningless job. Even the Zuidas, where our head office is located, is regarded by some as the “axis of evil”. I think that’s an unfair generalisation.
What we do as bankers is very meaningful. I don’t think the economy would exist without the financial system supported by banks. Innovation, infrastructure and healthcare wouldn’t exist without the ability to borrow money from a bank or get advice on certain projects.
We support companies, institutions, hospitals and universities. I think that’s very meaningful.
We see it in the numbers too. Every time we advertise a position, we literally get hundreds of applications. We’re a popular employer. Banks are popular employers.
I’d like to think the people applying aren’t all people without any sense of idealism or purpose. Purpose is critical. It’s wrong to say that people who work for financial institutions don’t have a sense of purpose. I disagree with that.
Somewhere, idealism needs to meet pragmatism to be constructive. As soon as idealism becomes activism, there’s always a danger of going overboard.
That’s why I like younger people having that sense of idealism. I hope they never lose it completely, but be practical.
Jeroen: Looking to the future, I imagine you’ll remain CEO of BNP Paribas in the Netherlands for quite some time. That’s the plan, I assume?
Hugo: I hope so too. It’s a great job.
Jeroen: What would you like to do afterwards?
Hugo: After this position at BNP Paribas? I haven’t really thought about that.
Jeroen: Are there particular things you’d love to do, whether they’re idealistic or not? Would you take another executive role, move into non-executive roles or charity, or stop working in the conventional sense altogether?
Hugo: Your question about charity is a good one. It doesn’t have to involve an executive or supervisory position.
Sometimes, I don’t think I spend enough time simply helping out, even doing practical, manual things. Am I doing enough of that? No. I’d like to do more, and I hope there’ll come a time when I have more time for it.
Is anything stopping me from doing more now? When I get home, I sometimes think it’s been a tiring day. But that’s a feeble excuse, I’m afraid.
Jeroen: Very specifically, though, do you think you’d take another C-level role after this one?
Hugo: I’m very happy where I am right now. I haven’t set my sights on another C-level role, but who knows what the future will bring?
Jeroen: Last question. We’ve discussed a lot: business, personal matters and things in between. I’ve really enjoyed it, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Is there anything missing? Anything that makes you think, “Jeroen, you should have asked that”? Or anything you’d like to add?
Hugo: Something I’d like to stress is that we should remain open-minded and broaden our horizons.
I worry a little that the complacency we’ve had in Western Europe for some time around energy and security sometimes leads to a rather dogmatic approach to solving our bigger problems, such as the focus on sustainability and climate.
I worry that it’s too one-dimensional. We forget that there are security issues not far from us, and poverty and hunger elsewhere.
In my view, we really need that multidimensional approach. It’s one reason I like working at a large international institution: it automatically brings different perspectives.
I’m a big advocate of that European angle. As a country, we’re too small to think of strategic autonomy as simply Dutch autonomy.
Jeroen: A great final comment.
Hugo Peek, CEO of BNP Paribas in the Netherlands, thank you very much. There are several reasons I’ve enjoyed this conversation, but probably the most important is that you’ve been able and willing to talk about all these different subjects and share very personal experiences.
That’s great, because the tagline of this podcast is “the person behind the success”. I don’t know how well that translates into English, but it works very well in Dutch. And that’s exactly the picture we’ve got here.
Thank you so much. I have two small presents for you, which I’ll give you after this conversation. I’ve enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me and with Leaders in Finance.
Hugo: You’re very welcome. It’s been a great pleasure. Thank you, Jeroen.
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