Foreigners are more closely looking at the Romanian market in their search for managerial talents in the context where expats dominate the boards of banks on the domestic market and the first three banks on the market are led by foreigners.
The latest regional promotion was that of Mihaela Bitu, who took over ING's lending operations in 10 countries. What are Romanians' strong points and why do they seem to be put to better use abroad?
Romanians are not the only ones migrating to managerial positions in the West, believes Bitu, 37, who, starting January 1, took over the position of regional head of general lending products for Central and Eastern Europe with ING Bank Netherlands.
"There are many people from Central and Eastern Europe taking such positions," states Bitu, who admits, however, that there is something special about Romanians. "They have a lot of determination and enthusiasm, more than our colleagues from the West. We are smart and we've gained experience in the fields where we operate and thus become points of interest for central headquarters. In time, a new generation of managers has emerged in Romania, too, who can be useful in organisations' countries of origin as well," says Bitu.
"There's no such thing as a Romanian banker. The Romanian banker is a product of international institutions on the market as there are no bankers trained in a domestic school of tradition. (...)," says Bitu. She believes there is always a nucleus of valuable people in a company, who cannot all fill managerial positions at one time. Thus, it is normal for some of them to switch to another organisation. Besides such situations, a specific feature of the domestic banking market is the employees' excessive mobility between different institutions, which brings along salary increases.
As people working in banks tend to change their job
