Herman Martens

Herman is arranging his next step from Istanbul, where he is based right now to work on an assignment in market risk. Prior to that, he did his internship in credit risk and then his first rotation as a trainee, which was in environmental and social risk. “That’s the non-financial side of risk. It’s very different from my internship, which was purely numbers-based and mainly involved a lot of modelling. Non-financial risk is about considering and justifying moral decisions rather than about numbers. It was really fun and interesting and I learned a lot, especially in terms of communicating with clients and colleagues worldwide.”

Despite that, Herman opted to move back to the numbers side for his next rotation. “I chose market risk, because I didn’t know anything about that yet. Combined with my experience in credit risk and social risk, I’ve now covered all the extremes of risk to get the complete picture. As a trainee in this domain, Istanbul, Sydney and New York are the places to be. I chose Istanbul because the Turkish market is very exciting; there’s always something going on. I actually found that out by talking to trainees who had already been there. That’s how you get your info, just like meeting up for coffee and networking is how you connect with the managers.”

Take the initiative to get the ball rolling

“I’ve been made to feel very welcome here in Turkey and everyone is friendly and helpful, but it was still quite a big adjustment. The work culture is more hierarchical, and 95% of my colleagues are Turkish so all conversations are held in Turkish. That’s logical, but it means I have to take the initiative to figure everything out and get the ball rolling myself. Fortunately my job – which is related to asset liability management – is all about the numbers again, so I know what I need to do.”

“Working abroad is a great learning experience. You have to push your boundaries, crawl out from behind your screen, seek people out and make new contacts – otherwise absolutely nothing will happen. But I’ve settled in now; I spend a lot of time hanging out with a few other trainees and there’s a great atmosphere within my team. I’ve also realised how much value I place on having nice colleagues. Even when I’d just joined ING, right after the lockdown period, I went into the office as much as possible. I want to get to know the people I’m working with well.”

Reaching out

“After finishing in Istanbul, I’m thinking of moving into Wholesale Banking. But to find out for sure if that’s right for me, I’m reaching out to some former trainees and team managers first. I’m actually pretty good at networking, even from a distance. And everyone at ING is always open to meeting up for a chat over coffee. I’m also getting better at ‘getting to the point’, so my networking conversations are becoming more relevant and more effective too, of course.”