Roger Matthews
Regional Manager, South Australia & North West Victoria
- I take great joy out of seeing clients and staff grow and develop
- Staying ahead of the curve on changes and trends is at the core of my role
- There’s really no substitute for meeting with our clients face to face
How do you help our clients?
The team I lead is almost 60 in number now, so much of my work is focused on helping clients via supporting and influencing staff, rather than directly assisting clients day to day. The agribusiness environment is changing rapidly for our clients, as is the banking environment at present. Staying ahead of the curve on changes and trends, and ensuring our bankers have the tools, processes, systems and confidence to deliver valuable insights or conversations with our clients is at the core of my role.
I do take a really active interest in our Client Council, whereby a group of diverse key clients come together four times a year and work collaboratively with Rabobank to make a meaningful impact on key focus areas of our clients and their communities. Our present focus is on lifting financial literacy among farmers, on addressing agriculture within school curriculums via support for www.frompaddocktoplate.com.au and on rural health and mental health.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Whenever I am meeting with clients and working through options for their business to grow and prosper always brings me great joy. I also take great joy out of seeing staff grow and develop, and you know they are offering value to clients to continue to grow and prosper.
How has COVID-19 affected the way you work?
Initially the transition to have staff connected at home, with the applications they need was comparatively simple – thankfully the bank had already done a lot of work around improving remote access for all staff. There were some initial challenges with regards to handling client documentation and ID requirements but this period of lockdown has enabled us to implement some changes to simplify these processes and lead to lasting change in the way we do business.
There’s really no substitute for meeting with our clients face to face – on farm or in the branch – but their willingness to meet via video conference or participate in webinars has been enlightening, and it offers another method of bringing our knowledge and networks to more clients, more often in future.