A $24 billion Dutch lender is cutting its workforce—and to get the remaining staff on board, the CEO is having sandwiches with them |
A $24 billion Dutch lender is cutting its workforce—and to get the remaining staff on board, the CEO is having sandwiches with them
The $24 billion Dutch bank ABN Amro is cutting a fifth of its workforce over the next three years—so how is its CEO Marguerite Bérard rallying the troops? By sacrificing her long meals and talking over the growing pains with staffers over weekly lunches.
“I now take lunch early and at my desk,” Bérard told the Financial Times in a recent interview. “This is a big cultural change because French meals can be long. This has been one of my adjustments.”
The bank has been taking hits since the financial crisis, having previously been rescued from collapse—and more recently, ABN Amro’s 2025 fourth quarter net profit was lower than market expectations. Last November, the bank announced a plan to increase return on equity (ROE) to at least 12%, while keeping cost/income ratio below 55%. However, the bid to turn things around required some sacrifices, including cutting 5,200 staffers between from 2024 to 2028. By the end of 2025, 1,500 employees had already been cut, ABN Amro informed Fortune.
Now, once a week, the French banker has sandwiches with eight to 10 colleagues in an effort to “hear their views on the bank” through the transition.
“Building consensus and coalitions is often important in the Netherlands,” the CEO continued. “It’s something that the French........