Interview with a leading female figure in business
Susanne Bolin Gärtner, Head of Fund and Manager Selection at Danske Bank
Head of Manager and Fund Selection at Danske Bank as per January 2020. For the last 10 years I held the position as Head of Fund Selection & ESG external funds Folksam. I am proud of having delivered a sustainable guided selection of funds ranked highly among peers together with my team. Prior to that I have held several senior positions within bank and insurance companies. I am also the Board chairman of Swesif (an independent association that has its purpose in sustainable investments) and in the Investment Committee for Barncancerfonden (Child cancer foundation). In my spare time I am a devoted Yoga and Pilates instructor.
Taking a brief look at your working life, what would you highlight about your professional career?
I am proud to have joined Danske Bank this year and gotten the opportunity to build a strong Nordic team bringing my earlier experience into the process including my experience with ESG and sustainability. Besides my new role I will continue my position as a board member and recently also the chairman of Swesif (an independent Swedish association that has its purpose in sustainable investment) and also my position as a member of the Finance Committee of Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation).
I have been within banking and insurance for my whole career. After university, a long time ago, I actually started within trade finance and merchant banking, including being a country manager for Asean and a secondment in an Australian Bank in Sydney. Then, after some years, I made a U-turn you might say and switched over to the sell side and unit linked insurance. And from there my interest for funds has just grown over the years. And switching to the buyside having built fund offers both within unit-linked insurance and banking for many years now, always having the endclient in mind.
At my previous employer Folksam (Swedish insurance company), I was heading up fund selection for the last decade. My prime task was to develop the fund strategy and build a fund selection team over the years. I am proud of having worked with consistent engagement with all the external fund managers and fund companies to make the fund offer sustainable and ESG integrated in all the chosen funds on the fund plattform. So concluding my mission at Folksam, together with my team we delivered a top-performing fund offer within unit-linked insurance that was in the range of top-3 in best-performing fund offers and also got acknowledged for the highest ratings for sustainability works. That made the perfect timing for me to take on a new challenge.
How did you day to day life changed in the past months, due to remote working?
I started in Danske Bank in January 2020, and as my fund selection team is based out of Copenhagen (Lyngby) today and myself out of Stockholm I started scheduling my weeks with three days per week in Copenhagen to get to know my team and also physically meet as many stakeholders and colleagues as possible. That worked out well but came to an abrupt stop in mid-March when I was in Copenhagen and supposed to attend and be part of hosting an event (in the industry) in Copenhagen. Abruptly all external events and travelling was stopped in Danske Bank, and so I had to travel back to Stockholm, and have been working from home since the week after that. I soon started daily team meetings on Skype with my colleagues in order for us to communicate on a daily basis. For me this really was a good thing, we were all
on equal terms calling in, not like some people sitting in a meeting room having me calling in.
Now we have 15 min daily talks on Skype (every one calling in from their own desk) in the mornings and on Fridays one-hour meetings on Teams so we are “live”. My team and I find this a good way of working together, but in Denmark my colleagues are back in the office, so I am keen to stay connected and hopefully be able to plan visits during autumn.
What is the greatest challenge as a fund selector?
There are so many good funds in the constantly growing universe so the biggest challenge is actually keeping up with ongoing monitoring as well as looking out for prospect funds. The combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluation of funds and managers is always a balance. When evaluating a fund manager “look beyond communication skills”. By that I mean
that some fund managers are very good at promoting their products while others might be more focused on delivery. Then there is sustainability and ESG, how this is actually integrated in the process and how the managers are involved and “believers” if you will. Lastly, stick to your choices, remember why a fund was chosen and be longterm. Dare to challenge funds that do not perform, decide how many “bad quarters” are allowed before changing funds.
