Ep. 250: Yerbol Orynbayev - Lessons in Crisis Management and Restructuring

Welcome to the Count Me In Podcast! Join host Adam Larson as he chats with the insightful Yerbol Orynbayev, a seasoned leader with a wealth of experience in both the public and private sectors. Yerbol shares compelling stories and lessons from his remarkable career, including his tenure as the deputy prime minister of Kazakhstan and his pivotal role in restructuring a major bank. His candid insights and practical advice are sure to inspire aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs. Tune in for an engaging conversation packed with real-world insights and takeaways!

Full Episode Transcript:
< Intro >

 

Adam:            Welcome back to Count Me In. In this episode, we have the privilege of interviewing Yerbol Orynbayev. Who shares his extraordinary leadership journey, and the impactful lessons he's learned. Yerbol's experiences range from serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, to transforming the Jusan Bank from near bankruptcy to achieving $1.2 billion in profit.

 

Throughout the episode, Yerbol sheds light on the crucial decisions and strategies that were pivotal in leading the bank to success. His insightful advice on leadership, vision, investing in people, and embracing failures provides valuable lessons for aspiring leaders. Join us as Yerbol shares his invaluable wisdom and experiences, on navigating crisis and driving change.

 

< Music >

 

Yerbol, we're really excited to have you on the podcast. I'm just really excited to chat with you, about your leadership journey and the different paths you've taken, and you've had quite the leadership journey. What drew you to the different positions that you've taken, and what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way?

 

Yerbol:           Adam, first of all, thank you very much for this opportunity to share my experience about Jusan Bank story, with you, with your program. I worked for the government of Kazakhstan for quite a long time. I resigned in 2015. Before that time, before my resignation, I served as the deputy prime minister and handled economic and then social responsibilities. And, so, in 2018, when I was already with the private sector, working on my own business. I received an invitation from the university, which asked me to help them to set up the investment division of the endowment fund.

 

So it was a very exciting proposal. I believe they decided to focus on me and then send this invitation to me because during my time with the government, I served as a board member of the National Bank of Kazakhstan. The board member of the Agency for Supervision of the financial organizations. I also, successfully, set up a western-type university in Kazakhstan. So a lot of people knew me very well. So they said, "Okay, why not, after one successful story, one successful project, let's offer him this opportunity."

 

So in 2018, I started this journey, the Jusan Bank with other banks, and I had this great opportunity to create the investment division of the endowment fund. So that's how I started this particular journey with the Jusan Bank, with its restructuring, creating a new business model based on the ecosystem.

 

In terms of the lessons, actually, it was very interesting and enriching experience. I learned very valuable lessons. One of them is that you should really understand your business, and then your customers. And, then, currently, there is a great shift, all over the world, in terms of the customers' behavior. New technologies like AI, digitalization, increased computational capacities, and also the new generation of customers, they have completely different preferences. So these two trends kind of changed the whole landscape. 

So you have to understand your clients, you have to understand your business within/out, know your customers. Because if you don't know you cannot lead, and you cannot restructure or do some right things without this really deep knowledge and understanding the main foundations of your business. 

 

The second lesson I would say that, dream big. What I learned, in reality, with great vision, with the right team, with the right strategy, with the right implementation plan, you can achieve a lot. So dreaming big it's very important. 

 

The third lesson I would say that always have an exit strategy, especially when you're dealing with the big structures. Together, the whole system, I managed about 10,000 employees. So this is quite big, the price of the mistake could be very high, but you cannot stop development. You have to still innovate. You still should align your business, product, services, in line with the current demands.

 

So you should innovate, you should do something new, but exit strategy is ve