Together with London Business School (LBS), Nordea created the Strategic Leadership Programme to empower its next-generation leaders to: think strategically about the future and about customers; align functions and strategies to the overarching Nordea Future Relationship Bank Strategy; and build trust across the whole business. Learn more about our customised programmes: http://bit.ly/2mzsMM5

1. 1
Nordea and London
Business School:
The Strategic Leadership Programme
Developing a pipeline of next-generation strategic leaders

2. 2
Executive Summary
It’s 2011 and Nordea Bank faces a number
of challenges.
Digitisation, changing customer preferences
and new competitors are changing the post-crisis
landscape.
A new generation of strategic leaders is needed to
deliver Nordea’s mission:
Together with London Business School (LBS),
Nordea empowers its next-generation leaders to:
¢¢ Think strategically about the future and
about customers
¢¢ Align functions and strategies to the overarching
Nordea Future Relationship Bank Strategy
¢¢ Build trust across the whole business
The result is the Strategic Leadership
Programme (SLP).
To lead the future
in European relationship
banking

3. 3
Executive Summary
10cohorts
of upcoming Nordea
leaders have passed
through the programme.
The impact on them
and the bank has
been immediate –
and significant.
360feedback reports
great progress in:
¢¢ driving innovation
¢¢ integrative, cross-functional
thinking
¢¢ spotting opportunities
for competitive leverage
¢¢ acting on new concepts
and insights.
87%
of all participants have
acquired key strategic
leadership skills
and competencies.

4. 4
Nordea’s challenge: how do you develop strategic leaders?
Nordea needs a new approach to leadership training that will develop customer-
centric value propositions.
Previous attempts have had a positive impact at an individual level. But the time and opportunity have
come to do something that will drive change company-wide.
The bank needs
a comprehensive programme
that will:
Link
to strategy
Work at senior
executive and
other levels
Deploy a common
language and
methodology

5. 5
We wanted to enter a new
phase and look at the future
with fresh eyes. We wanted
to establish a common
language and unite the
functions and the countries
within our business.
Henrik Priergaard-Nielsen
Managing Director, Nordea

6. 6
Bringing in outside knowledge
Nordea develops a Leadership
Pipeline Model that will form the
basis of its new approach.
The bank decides that the time has come
to bring in expertise and knowledge from
outside to fulfil these strategic leadership
development objectives.
The search for a learning partner begins.
Great leadership in Nordea is the
ability to engage and motivate
people to reach out for our vision
and the ability to set the right team
to make it happen
Nordea leadership statement 2011
Onboarding
(individal contributor)
Passage
Four
Passage
Three
Passage
One
Passage
Two
Individual
development
Virtualandcross-boarderleader
Nordea’s Leadership Pipeline Model
Potential leader
Leading leaders
Executive leader
Leading others
STRATEGIC
LEADER

7. 7
We took a long time to
choose our learning partner. We
looked at competence and track
record, rankings, faculty and
prestige. We wanted to be sure
we chose the best and LBS
came out on top.
We made the right decision.
Marianne Siig
Head of Leadership Development,
Nordea

8. 8
Making the diagnosis. Designing the solution
Nordea partners with LBS. Together, Nordea leaders
and the LBS Programme team get to work.
Through open
dialogue and
analysis, they:
¢¢ Carry out research
¢¢ Organise design
workshops
¢¢ Arrange LBS
campus visits
They diagnose
the big issues:
¢¢ Nordea needs to
see past complexity
and reach for the
bigger picture
¢¢ The company is
better at “what”
than “why”
¢¢ Innovation must
be aligned to
Nordea’s strategy
¢¢ Customer
focus needs
improving
And identify
the themes
and objectives:
¢¢ A need for an
embedded model
of leadership
¢¢ Heightened
awareness of
Nordea’s strategy
To develop
the solution:
¢¢ A modular learning
programme
¢¢ Combining on-
campus learning,
coaching and
experiential activities
¢¢ A learning journey
from understanding
to thinking and
execution

9. 9
Nordea wanted their senior
leaders to think long-term, about
opportunities and threats and
shifting priorities, not being
embedded in the day to day running
of the business. At that level, you
need to think about competitive
advantage and what your future
customers might want and need.
You’ve also got to help others
understand the strategy too, and
inspire people to come with you.
That’s strategic leadership, and
that’s what SLP is about.
Tim Orme,
Programme Director
London Business School

10. 10
The Strategic Leadership Programme (SLP)
The SLP is a modular learning
journey built on clear objectives
and actionable outcomes.
Learning happens via:
Analysis of real business case studies
Open dialogue with peers and faculty
Action planning
Coaching
Role playing and change simulations
The Strategic Challenge

11. 11
Immediate impact, minimal disruption
Module 1
Inspiring Leadershp – The Heart of Leadership
¢¢ Reflecting on leadership style, impact on others and building
the pipeline
¢¢ Influencing, engaging, motivating and bi-directional learning
¢¢ Communicating and building relationships to drive change
Module 2
Strategic Thinking – The Head of Leadership
¢¢ Exploring the competitive landscape
¢¢ Communicating strategy and influencing upwards
¢¢ Identifying solutions that create value
Module 3
Making It Happen – The Hands of Leadership
¢¢ Understanding change leadership
¢¢ Translating strategy into execution and performance
¢¢ Overcoming barriers
¢¢ Building programmes that align to strategy
Post-Programme
¢¢ Immediate impact
¢¢ Applying the learning
The programme
is modular so that
participants
can balance
commitments
with professional
development.
Between modules, new
ideas and concepts are
applied at Nordea for an
immediate impact.
The application between
modules is supported by
group coaching.

12. 12
Coaching
“The coach helped me to
“crack the code” on why
my team sees me as they
do and since then the
team satisfaction
has increased.”
“The coaching underlined
the value of utilising peers
as partners.”
“I made several big decisions
based on the coaching
I received from the team.”
Participants benefit from both one-to-one
coaching with an LBS Executive Coach
and from peer coaching from their group.
The coaching supports them to reflect on their
development needs, apply what they are learning,
develop their Nordea network and develop
their own coaching skills.
“The positive effect on my
team is concretely visible in
the positive development of
employee satisfaction.”

13. 13
Follow up
Feedback and
demonstration of
real-life impact
The strategic challenge
Module 1
Identify a specific
challenge you
face at work
Modules 2 and 3
Build the tools to
diagnose, analyse
and solve your
challenge
Post Programme
Deploy your
solution
The Strategic Challenge is designed to enable participants to apply what they
learn on the programme.

14. 14
The strategic challenge
“The outcome of my
strategic challenge has
been hugely positive. We
have much greater focus on
our customers. This means
we’ve improved our income
mix and return on equity,
while improving our team
and daily work. We’ve seen
this in the recent employee
satisfaction index.”
“My strategic challenge was
to investigate if a change
in structure could generate
capital relief. We found
that it couldn’t and saved
time, money and
resources in pursuing
a large change
programme.”
“My strategic challenge was to set
up an offshoring unit supporting
development services. The
programme has empowered me to
get business buy-in and
has given me the tools
to motivate leaders
in my team
in executing
change.”
“My individual strategic
challenge has been
transformed into one
of the elements of the
Danish retail plan for
2015 with real impact
in sourcing new
customers.”

15. 15
74%
are better
at driving
innovation79%
have a deeper
understanding of
other functions
78%
are better at
motivating
others
87%
of all programme
participants have
acquired strategic
leadership
competencies.
74%
are better at seeing
opportunities for
competitive
advantage
Impact
Source: LBS Participant Survey
360 degree feedback
97%
have gained
actionable
insights

16. 16
The SLP is at the top of
our ecosystem and plays
a crucial role. From the
beginning we wanted to
make sure it fit with our
leadership pipeline, and it
fits perfectly.
Our leaders are now
speaking the same language.
Henrik Priergaard-Nielsen
Managing Director, Nordea

17. 17
Tangible results
“I reduced costs by 12%
over a two to three-
year period, while
providing better service
and more deliveries.”
“I am more focused on setting
clear targets and identifying
the right leaders to delegate
to and trust, and to hold them
accountable for managerial
work and results.”
“We added acquisition sales to
boost new customers’ inflow,
increased focus on high-value
added products and closed
down commoditised businesses.
That resulted in a €5 million
increase in annual PL, with 5%
lower headcount and 10% lower
allocated costs.”

18. 18
Nordea and LBS made a long term
commitment to support our strategic
leaders’ capabilities to evolve us
as an organisation. We measure
our success by the strength of the
relationship between our learning
organisation and the programme
developers; the overwhelming and
consistently positive feedback from
our leaders; and the way in which
our diverse business areas’ and
functions’ support of the program
has increased year-on-year.
Kasper Bas Svendsen,
Head of Learning and Leadership Development,
Nordea

19. 19
LBS and Nordea:
a partnership for the future
Since the SLP began, Nordea has
steadily changed.
For the first time in its history, the bank has:
The partnership between LBS
and Nordea grows stronger with
every cohort.
LBS will support Nordea in the two-year
roll-out of its One Nordea and Future
Relationship Bank strategies.
The SLP has become part of Nordea.
A world-class leadership
training package.

20. 20
The timeline to success
2011
Jan 2012
Sept 2012
Oct – Dec 2012
Jan 2013
April 2013
June 2013
Sept 2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Initial discussions between LBS and Nordea
Request for proposal from Nordea
Internal Nordea proposal to Group Executive
Management (GEM) is approved and contract signed
Diagnostic interviews and design work
Cohort 1 starts
Cohort 2 starts
Cohort 3 starts
Cohort 4 starts
Cohorts 5 and 6 start
Cohorts 7 and 8 start
Cohorts 9 and 10 start
Cohort 11 starts

21. 21
People moving up through the ranks
and those coming in from outside
say the same thing: the SLP is the
best leadership programme they
have ever attended.
This is what we wanted.
Henrik Priergaard-Nielsen
Managing Director, Nordea

22. 22
www.london.edu/corporatelearning