Square peg, round hole

By Nikki Mandow

Monday 1st November 2004

James Munro was the first employee (now chief operating officer) of Superbank, which was launched in February last year. New Zealand's newest bank is telephone/internet-only and holds 0.5% of total domestic term deposits, having tucked away $330 million of customer funds. Munro drives a girlie metallic blue Mini with Superbank emblazoned on the side and wears an unflattering black shirt with the same logo. Thrusting Superbank application forms into the hands of mere passing acquaintances (or journos), he's a turbo-charged promoter of Superbank.

You left school early, dropped out of university, spent 15 years working in the media overseas, then came back to work at TVNZ. Then suddenly you become a banker. What happened?
TV is full of egotistical people who don't know what they are doing. Banking is no different. Anyway, I don't call myself a banker. Once I found myself saying that's what I was, and I felt dirty and used. I'm in banking.

Why Superbank?
When I went for the job interview I had no idea who I was meeting or what company it was for. All the recruitment company said was there were two multi-billion-dollar players and it was a job I would find exciting. And I do. It's exciting building a business from the ground up in a large, profitable market dominated by oligopolies.

You're on record saying you want Superbank to be "fun and optimistic". You're kidding, surely?
What I envisage for Superbank is a tight customer group who are evangelical about their bank in the way you might have a love affair with your wine company, or your car company, or your cellphone company. At the moment banking is like toilet paper - you can't do without it. Only once in my life have I ever heard anyone rant (positively) about their bank. We want to create an environment where people talk about Superbank like they do about wine.

Early Superbank ads featured former All Black and Wallabies captains Sean Fitzpatrick and Phil Kearns walking hand in hand through Auckland. Your latest ads show an animated Superman character. Don't people want their bank to be serious?
I don't think so. People want their bank to be safe. I think people like the mild irreverence. What went wrong with the Sean Fitzpatrick campaign was that we created this story of a great New Zealand company and a great Australian company coming together to deliver a new and exciting business and it got us huge awareness. But we should have followed it up with a good product-based tactical campaign to get people to sign up for an offer. We didn't. We've learnt from that mistake.

What have been the easiest things about setting up Superbank?
I'm not sure there have been any easy things. It's not just a bank, it's a startup. Imagine what it's like being the first employee, without a desk or a laptop, and having to invent your own business, - plus it's a bank. I haven't done banking before. And I'm not sure I'd want to do it again.

What's the worst thing about being back in New Zealand?
The conservative employment market. You arrive back with your rose-tinted spectacles having read all the stuff about New Zealand begging its expats to return. Then you get here and you go for interview and lay out your experience working in multinational companies with multi-million dollar turnovers and the employer tells you have to have New Zealand experience. New Zealand companies are fine at employing square pegs for square holes - accountants for finance jobs, engineers to run engineering companies. But look at [former ASB Bank boss] Ralph Norris. What had he ever had to do with airlines before he was made head of Air New Zealand? He was a square peg in a round hole. It was an inspired choice. When I got back to New Zealand, I was the lateral candidate and very few people in New Zealand will employ the lateral candidate. Underneath its veneer of modernity, New Zealand businesses are as conservative as they were in the 1950s. That's why business in this country languishes.

I invited you to lunch, so what's the deal giving me all these Superbank application forms? I mean, have I given you an Unlimited subscription form?
Open a deposit account with more than $1000 and I'll take one Unlimited subscription. Take out a home loan and I'll take two. OK?

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