New | Swire's trainer of top executives has been there and done that
Tomas Bay used to be managing director of Maersk Logistics, so he's well qualified to train senior executives up to the CEO level for Swire
Tomas Bay was formerly boss of a multinational firm, which is probably why he could get into a programme to train other senior executives for the Swire Group.
A father of two daughters, Bay is the principal consultant at Ethos International, an in-house organisation Swire uses to train team leaders, department heads and other senior executives of the companies under the group. Next year, it will expand the programme to provide training for chief executives.
Bay has the singular advantage of having many years of experience as a team leader and head of operations. This helps him understand the problems of the job and the training needed by senior executives.
"I always wanted to be a teacher as I love training and sharing knowledge with others," he said in an interview at the Ethos office in Quarry Bay.
Bay was born in Denmark and began his career working for international shipping and oil giant A.P.Moller - Maersk. He rose to become the managing director of Maersk Logistics HK in 1999, running the business and its staff of 700 people in southern China.
While Bay enjoyed his job at Maersk very much, his initial career choice was in fact to be a teacher. And every time he joined a training class at Maersk, he wanted to switch positions with the trainer.
In 2005, he opted to follow his heart by quitting his high-paying job at the shipping company to become a full-time trainer.
He became a consultant in corporate executive training. The pay cut is something he only had the courage to take because of the support of his wife.
"I told my wife about my decision and she said "whatever you decide to do, I would always support you".
And he has no regrets.
"Every Monday, I am always happy to go to work, as I think I will have five days to teach and help other people to learn something new and to solve their problems at work."
In 2007, he joined Swire, a British conglomerate involved in trading, airlines and property that has 130,000 employees worldwide. Bay helped Swire found Ethos International. The programme, launched in 2009, has already trained over 2,000 people.
While the company can sponsor its staff to receive training at other institutions, Bay said in-house training has the advantage of a centralised framework, and offers multiple-year programmes to train people for Swire's diverse businesses.
Bay said the training programme not only give Swire staff knowledge about their jobs, it also establishes a culture for the company.
"Swire is going to celebrate its 200th anniversary. It is important for its staff to have the values of the company - continuity, endeavour, excellence, humility and integrity, professionalism and innovation," he said.
The Ethos programme offers four levels of training. The first level is for management trainees or those in their first three years with Swire. They learn the basic skills they need to do their jobs as well as Swire values and culture.
The second level is for the executives who are in their fourth to eighth year at Swire, and are learning how to lead a team. Bay said many participants have lots of questions to ask at the workshops at this level.
"Many of the team leaders are still in their late 20s, and this is the first time for them to be a leader. They may be sent to lead a team in Papua New Guinea or other markets away from home. They may have a team member 20 years their senior," he said.
They have to learn a lot of skills in order to define the role of their team members and deal with different cultures and background.
"The best thing to do is to honestly say you do not know and ask the local staff about the local conditions. Just don't pretend you know everything," is one of the tips that he offers to first-time team leaders.
The third level of training is for those who have put in nine to 15 years at Swire. They are usually heads of departments, and they require training on setting strategies for their units.
The fourth and final level will be chief executive training. Bay said this level was still under development and would be introduced next year.
"This will be challenging, as we have not done this before. We will work with external experts to develop a programme for the CEOs," he said.
Most find the training useful, he said, especially on presentation skills and financial planning.
But it is not just specialised knowledge or leadership skills that Bay teaches.
"Corporate governance, innovation and looking forward are all very important in how we run our business. We do not only teach people how to make profits for the company," Bay said.
"We make sure they have the right attitude and understand the importance of ethnical issues, and learn not to run their business in a risky manner.
"We definitely do not want to see anyone leading the company into any corporate scandals," he added.
He said this was increasingly important given the proliferation of regulations for companies concerning false accounting, corruption and other unethical practices.
"Swire has a tradition. Reputation is very important to our company," he said.
