Fidelity Careers: Meet Eric

My background’s very international – I’m half Dutch and half English – and I’ve moved around Europe my entire life, so I was keen on gaining international experience. Fidelity attracted me because it was a large multi-national company.

I joined Fidelity as a graduate in 1998 and after working in a number of European roles, I asked to go to India because I thought it sounded interesting and exotic. This is one of the aspects of Fidelity’s culture I enjoy – you can drive your own career.

I started in India looking after the Customer Service department, supporting India, the UK and Europe. I then set up the India Domestic Business (AMC) Customer Services team. This was an interesting role because I had to deal with a very different client base to the Western clients I’d been dealing with before. The language, investment behaviours and market were all very different to what I was used to. Then I set up the Institutional Operations department, which involved a lot of transitions of roles from the UK to India. Over a year and a half, I built a team of 60 people from scratch. My final role in India was managing 250 staff to support the European and UK Back Office Retail business.

This international exposure gave me a broader view of Fidelity. Importantly, it also taught me how to deal with different cultures. This will be very important in my future career, as I see this continuing on an international path.

I’ve only been in my current role as Business Manager to the President of the European business for a short time. I support him in a number of tasks to try and free his time for more strategic initiatives. This covers everything from customer service and technology to different European distribution businesses. So I get involved in ad hoc projects and tasks covering the full spectrum of the business. I really enjoy the variety – more than anything I’ve done so far, it gives me a unique view of how the European business is run.

The culture at Fidelity rewards and respects initiative and proactive behaviour. The company also welcomes challenges to the status quo – for example, I’ve challenged very senior people in meetings and this has always been well received. The key is doing this constructively.

I’ve been at Fidelity for almost ten years and most of my peer group have worked for two or three companies in that time. I’m an ambitious person and I think the fact that I’m still here shows that I’ve had a lot of opportunities to develop my career.

Eric at Fidelity