Interview with Simon Nicholson, Branch Manager of Handelsbanken Hove

 

 

 

The city is an amazing place to work with some really incredible businesses.  I love the fact that we have such a number of great local companies that it is part of our culture to buy from.  You only need to walk around the town and see all of the smaller independents to realise what a vibrant city we live in.

 

Brighton and Hove Chamber obviously! Also the Boundary Club.  As a local Bank we try to arrange our own smaller networking events where we can deliver some benefit locally.  For example we recently had a Jazz evening at the Grand Hotel in support of Able&Willing and the Rockinghorse, as well as being a successful networking event we raised over £500 for charity.  I think this kind of activity is terribly important.

 

Personally I like to try and see a list of attendees prior to the event to identify anyone I would really like to meet.  I often invite people to come as guests who I want to get to know better so that I can have some quality time with them and hopefully they will also get some benefit from the event.

 

First thing in the morning.  I am a very heavy sleeper and tend to wake up fresh in the morning but it’s all downhill from there!  Evening events are always a bit of a struggle for me.

 

I have two passions in my leisure time.  One is cycling and I had the great pleasure of cycling to Paris earlier this year to raise funds for the Mayors charities.  I also race go karts and have done so all across the UK and some races in Europe.  It’s a fantastic sport and this year I started racing in the UK historic series.

 

 

The pub has to be the Bow Street Runner as the people in there are really friendly and it is a “proper” pub.  No food, no music just a really nice friendly bar full of locals.  For eating out I am never disappointed when I go to GB1 in the Grand Hotel.

 

Without a crystal ball this is hard to predict of course and will vary greatly depending on the nature of the business. However, what we do know is that Handelsbanken in Hove as in the rest of the UK will continue to support and establish local banking relationships with businesses and private banking customers in our local communities. 

 

This has been achieved by the consistent hard work and great efforts by our dedicated branch staff in our local communities. We all care about our customers deeply and are driven not by bonuses or short term incentives (Handelsbanken do not operate a bonus system) but by providing customers a service that in unrivalled anywhere else. Our customers know that they can trust us to provide the products and services that are suitable for them in the long term and not what is the most profitable for the bank in the short term.