From oilfield engineer to one of Indonesia's most influential bankers, Helman Sitohang is a big believer that instinct is the most powerful driver when it comes to leading a person to where he should be.
Squeezing Asia Focus between back-to-back meetings across continents, the 50-year-old Credit Suisse executive strides into a meeting room in Bangkok, exuding professional charm and meekly apologising for being a few minutes late.
The Swiss bank's logo is pinned neatly on the left side of his black jacket. Well-combed black and silver hair frames a youthful face with few wrinkles on his forehead despite the burdens of being in the banking industry.
The man behind Credit Suisse's noteworthy success in Indonesia, Mr Sitohang last year became the first Indonesian ever appointed by the global financial institution as its chief executive officer overseeing the entire Asia-Pacific region.
A graduate of Indonesia's most prestigious school, Bandung Institute of Technology, Mr Sitohang embarked on a career as an oilfield engineer. During his free time on drill sites, he regularly picked up business journals and magazines and gradually became fascinated by the business world.
"My engineer friends teased me that it looked to them that I was more passionate about business than being an engineer," he tells Asia Focus with a smile.
Indeed, it was not long before Mr Sitohang decided to make a major career change. Two years later, he wanted to do something different so he moved to banking. "I told myself: maybe I should give it a try," he says.
And that is where he has been for the past 25 years and counting. The results suggest that banking is what he was born to do. Mr Sitohang has been recognised as Indonesia's top dealmaker for years with a network of connections that is second to none.
Throughout his decades of experience -- and more than a few sleepless nights -- Mr Sitohang has been involved in more than US$150 billion worth of transactions, corporate and sovereign deals across the globe. His activities have touched on all aspects of banking from corporate to structured derivative to investment banking and trading.
"This has given me a more comprehensive background experience, which enriches my judgements and decision-making," he says.
TOUGH TIMES
When he joined Credit Suisse in May 1998, it was perhaps one of the toughest times in financial history when the Asian crisis was at its peak. It was also a time of unprecedented political upheaval in Indonesia, triggered by the economic meltdown, food shortages and mass unemployment that eventually led to the fall of President Suharto.
"The rupiah went haywire and suddenly everything froze. There were no transactions whatsoever. It was quite scary because I'd been working in the industry for only a couple of years," he recalls.
At the time, many global banks were backing out of Indonesia and waiting for the economic and political wounds to heal. Foreign banks were poaching local talent and Mr Sitohang had some lucrative offers from banks in Europe, but he chose to remain committed to his country and his clients.
"I decided to stay in Southeast Asia and it was one of the best decisions in my life," he says.
"None of us in Asia had ever seen a crisis like this. You never know how it's going to pan out. There was an inner instinct telling me that maybe this is an opportunity and maybe I should give it a try."
By 1999 Mr Sitohang was the country CEO for Credit Suisse in Indonesia, a position he held until 2010 when he began to take on more regional responsibilities, culminating in his appointment as Asia Pacific CEO last year.
The lessons he learned through the crisis turned out to be invaluable, he says, and continue to enrich his experiences and deepen relationships with his high-profile clients.
Given that there were no transactions during the economic chaos of 1998, clients were starting to approach their banks with new requirements, such as debt restructuring and debt advisory. Most of the work involved advising clients, making business decisions, helping them to reposition and stabilise their companies.
"That was a great experience and reinforced my decision to stay committed to clients through good times and bad times," says Mr Sitohang.
"When you're a banker, you have to always be ready and assume that things will not always go smoothly. You have to assume the worst and be prepared for it. Always give clients the right and balanced advice and throw in your experience as much as possible."
ENTREPRENEURIAL MODEL
Mr Sitohang strongly believes that entrepreneurs are the backbone of any healthy economy and therefore need to be well nurtured in order for a country to grow sustainably.
One of his passions has always been working with entrepreneurs and he has witnessed many that have grown significantly, doing interesting things and creating a lot of jobs and opportunities.
"I believe that entrepreneurs are an important part of any economy because if a country wants to grow, it has to have very healthy entrepreneur base that is growing and competing on a fair basis," he says.
"I don't believe in economic growth that doesn't have a deep enough, broad-based population of entrepreneurs."
Mr Sitohang's own career has long been deeply rooted in working with entrepreneurs. "I've seen them succeed; I've seen them have troubles," he says.
No matter where their starting points were, one main characteristic he observes is that all entrepreneurs work very hard and are very creative. "This is one of the most important passions working with them."
In the nearly two decades he has been at Credit Suisse, Mr Sitohang has concluded that the bank's great strength is its unique ability to combine strong private banking with investment banking.
In Asia, Credit Suisse has branded itself as the "trusted entrepreneur bank" offering an entrepreneurial-focused model that provides advice to clients on wealth preservation as well as business advice for clients to expand assets and existing operations, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, capital markets and financing.
Given that Asia has about 80-85% first- and second-generation entrepreneurs, Mr Sitohang says those that fit into the high-net-worth-individual (HNWI) and ultra-high-net-worth-individual (UHNWI) categories will need both types of advice.
"You need to have a strong bank that understands both wealth preservation as well as how to grow a business, which deals more with investment banking skills," he says. "We have a unique strategy and we believe that Asia will do well regardless of the question about China's growth or slower growth in general."
Whatever lies ahead, Mr Sitohang keeps one saying in mind: "There is nothing permanent but change". Accordingly, he keeps motivating himself to learn, improve and seek better solutions and better strategies for his clients.
The Asia Pacific CEO does not believe in maintaining the status quo as he would end up behind his peers and rivals. His mandate is to grow and remain committed to Asia, and he continues to look for opportunities across the region.
"We are going the other way around. We have been growing efficiently and seeing onshore opportunities. We try to be smart and we were able to achieve good returns last year," he says.
Asia Pacific was the best performing region for Credit Suisse in terms of absolute growth in revenue and profit in the first quarter despite a rough start in the beginning of this year, he notes.
The Swiss bank reported record-high assets under management (AUM) in Asia and the Pacific at 158 billion Swiss francs and has added 30 relationship managers to its Asian Private Banking business, which brings the total number to 650 across Asia Pacific.
"We do believe that the opportunities and our coverage footprint across the region are large enough to absorb the number of relationship managers we have. Going forward to 2018, we will have somewhere around 800," Mr Sitohang says.
Born in Prague to an Indonesian father and a Slovakian mother during the communist era of what was then Czechoslovakia, Mr Sitohang reveals that his first language isn't even Indonesian.
"My first language is Czech. I only started studying Bahasa Indonesia when I was nine years old," he says.
Through a Soviet-sponsored scholarship, his father, an ethnic Batak from northern Indonesia, met his mother is Ružomberok in northern Slovakia, home to the Tatra Mountains.
His close affiliation with mountains and nature when he was younger led him to prefer nature vacations to bustling cities, even today.
"I like to take vacations to the countryside in Europe. The mountains in Switzerland have always been my favourite. When I was younger, I spent time in the mountains in Europe so it's in a way nostalgic," he says.
On weekends, he chooses to wind down and spend time with his family and friends. "In life, I'm a big believer that you have to have a balance. It's important," he says.
Mr Sitohang is married and has two children -- his son, doing consulting and his daughter studying in the ninth grade.
Some of his usual activities include tennis and bicycling and "practically anything that doesn't have much to do with work" he says with a laugh.
"I'm a big believer that life will get you and will drive you," he says. "Listen to your inner instinct. You inner instinct will tell you whether it's the right time to do the things you want to do. What's my plan going forward? I just don't know. I'll just follow my instinct."