Saul Eslake - Chief Economist, ANZ Bank, BEc (Hons), University of Tasmania , 1979

Saul Eslake was a brilliant scholar at UTAS, taking out numerous awards as an undergraduate before graduating with a First Class Honours degree. In 2002, he received an Outstanding Graduate Award by the University of Tasmania Foundation and is now on the Foundation's Board. He is a Senior Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australia , an Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a member of the US National Association of Business Economists and the Australian Representative on the International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists. Saul is also a member of a number of government advisory panels, including his most recent appointment as Chair of the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board. In August 1995, Saul became Chief Economist at the ANZ Bank. At ANZ he is also a member of the Group Asset and Liability Committee and is Chairman of ANZCover, the Bank's internal crime, fraud and professional indemnity insurance subsidiary. Although based in Melbourne since 1983, Saul maintains strong links with Tasmania and hopes one day to be able to return to live here with his family. This is Saul's career experience.

Where it all began.

As a youngster growing up in Smithton in north-western Tasmania , Saul had no specific ideas about a career. He had no particular impulse to follow his father into dentistry. He considered various things he saw around him and wondered about them, like teaching, for example. At high school in Hobart, Saul recalled having what he now describes as an 'irrational fear' of self-employment, which put him off the traditional professions like law and medicine into which kids who are doing well in their studies at school are often encouraged.

"One of the things I had considered doing and probably my favourite subject at school, was history. I had thought if I could make a living out of it I would study it at university but I concluded that you probably couldn't make a living out of it unless you were a particularly gifted writer, which I wasn't." At that stage, he had also decided that he didn't want to have to go the mainland for his tertiary studies and had narrowed down his choice of university study to either Engineering or Commerce.

"I eliminated Engineering partly because I didn't think my maths was good enough, and partly because someone who had outshone me in just about everything the two of us had ever done since grade 6 (and who subsequently went on to become a Rhodes Scholar) was also studying engineering, and I'd had enough of that. So I enrolled in the Commerce degree." Saul expected to major in Accounting because "I had some idea of what an accountant did" but after his first year of university study, "when you had to do Economics subjects as well as Accounting 1 and Commercial Law I", he found the Economics subjects were much more interesting and that's what he decided to major in.

Why Economics was so appealing.

"I think it was a combination of things - the subject material, and the presentation of it, including by lecturers, Bruce Felmingham (still lecturing at UTAS) and Don Challen (now Head of Treasury). The elements of history and politics included in the study of economics were intriguing and after my 2 nd year at university, I also had some idea of what economists actually did."

Influences while at university.

"Bruce Felmingham and Don Challen were excellent lecturers who taught me more often than any other lecturer. Another lecturer, whom I thought was extremely good in the way he taught his stuff, was the late Bill Magill. He was exceptionally methodical in the way he presented what were sometimes quite difficult subjects especially those with a mathematical orientation. I had Alf Hagger for some subjects while completing my Honours dissertation. Alf was a very thoughtful and helpful mentor. Another lecturer who sparked an interest that never really flowered until some time after I'd left university, was Bob Rutherford, a lecturer who may have been in his first year out lecturing when he taught me. Bob who sparked a smouldering interest in Maynard Keynes"

Value of a university degree in Economics.

For Saul, "[a solid] grounding in economic theory, the explanations of how that was relevant to understanding contemporary economic events, and the quantitative techniques we were taught, (although many of those have since been overtaken by developments in both theory and information technology)," proved to be valuable assets in his career as an economist.

Expectations following graduation.

Saul knew what he was going to do upon graduating because he was awarded a Commonwealth Treasury Cadetship which funded his Honours degree and provided him with a pathway to a job.

Starting out in a career.

After completing Honours, Saul moved to Canberra to work for the Commonwealth Treasury. "I wasn't thrilled about moving to Canberra , but I felt obliged to go, and the Treasury had a good reputation as a place for economists to work, so off I went. I have to say I didn't really like Canberra - I sometimes describe it as two and a half years of 'capital punishment'. I was homesick to an extent. I found Canberra to be fairly soul-less and the work I was doing didn't initially use much of what I'd spent the previous four years studying. It tended to involve a lot of 'grunt' work (proof-reading the writing and checking the arithmetic of others) and I got bored with it fairly quickly." Saul came back to Tasmania two and a half years later at the age of 23.

"Moving back to Tasmania may have been a mistake in the sense that if I had stuck it out in Treasury for a lot longer I probably would have gained some of the things that Treasury promises its young graduates - challenging work and an insight into how economic policy is made, but I lacked the discipline or foresight to stick it out for that long. In the end, I guess I wouldn't have ended up with a better job that the one I've currently got, but in hindsight I nonetheless carry some regrets about leaving Canberra as quickly as I did. I regret not having seen and participated in the making of economic policy at a higher level. If I had stayed in Treasury longer I may also have had the opportunity to work overseas, or support to undertake a higher degree."

"I came back to a job in Tasmania with the Advisory Council for Intergovernment Relations (established in Hobart by the Fraser Government and later abolished by the Hawke Government). One of the things that helped me get that job was the one year unit in public finance I took during my 3 rd year at university, which was taught by Bruce Davis from the Arts Faculty. Whilst employed with the Advisory Council, I worked on intergovernmental financial issues and housing. Partly as a result of Bruce Davis's course, I think I'm one of the few economists, outside the Commonwealth or State Treasuries, to understand how the Grants Commission works; it was one of Bruce's pet topics. Sometimes that's been useful to what I do currently." Saul stayed with Advisory Council for Intergovernment Relations for about 18 months before eventually coming to the view that much as he loved being back in Tasmania, he had to choose between living where he wanted to live (Tasmania) and being somewhere where he could do challenging work that was well paid and had a career structure. It was time to head off back to the mainland.

Career plan.

"I didn't really have a [career] plan until I came to Melbourne in 1983. I went to Melbourne to work as an Economic Adviser to a then very unknown politician named Jeff Kennett, who'd just become Leader of the Opposition in the Victorian Parliament. I worked for him for 18 months." On Saul's first day in this job, he attended a seminar Kennett had organised for his parliamentary members. One of the speakers there was the then Chief Economist of the ANZ Bank, Alistair Maitland. That seminar "kind of planted a seed" in Saul regarding his future career plans. "[Maitland] gave a very interesting talk and I thought, "that's an interesting job" and filed it away for future reference."

Saul can't recall the specific aspects of Maitland's job that appealed to him at that point but after 18 months of working for Kennett, he ran into someone he had known in Treasury in Canberra who had also left the public service to be, as was quite common in the 1980s, Chief Economist at a merchant bank. "He was looking for a Junior Economist to work for him and I thought, "that's good, that's a step [towards] in the direction I want to head, and basically everything I did between 1984 and 1995 was with a view ultimately to be seen as potential candidate for the job which I was eventually offered in 1995, which was the Chief Economist of the ANZ Bank."

Career progression.

Between 1984 and 1986, Saul was a junior Economist at Chase NBA (later First National), the merchant banking arm of the National Australia Bank. From there he was offered and took the job as Chief Economist of the stockbroking firm, McIntosh Securities (now part of Merrill Lynch). Saul then went to a job at National Mutual Funds Management (now part of the Axa Insurance group) which went through a number of names, the last of them being Chief Economist (International) at National Mutual Funds Management. In the middle of that was seconded for 7 months to head the then newly elected Kennett Government's Victorian Commission of Audit, which undertook an into the financial situation which that Government had inherited from its predecessor. In August in 1995, Saul was offered the job he now has.

Saul regards his role as Chief Economist at ANZ as a bit like 'making partner' in a law or accounting firm. Like a partner in a law firm or an accounting firm, or someone who establishes a professional medical practice or becomes a specialist in a medical field, it's something you typically aim to do before you're forty; and then that's what you do for most of the rest of your working life.

"To an outsider, what I'm doing may appear to be the same job (Saul has been Chief Economist with ANZ for 11 years at the time of writing), but just as a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor assumes and hopes that the cases or issues that present themselves each year are sufficiently interesting and challenging to stay mentally engaged, I've found that also to be the case with my job. I'd like to remain Chief Economist with ANZ for another 8 years or so - assuming ANZ is comfortable with that prospect as well - by which I'll be around 55 and I'd probably like to come back to Tasmania if I can, although who knows what I'd actually do, I haven't yet identified that.

Saul suggests his career may have come to a stop in terms of corporate ladder climbing but certainly not in terms of intellectual interest, engagement and challenge. "I think I've been aware that this was the nature of what I intended to do way back in the 1980s when I first considered the Chief Economist, ANZ role."

Strategies for finding work.

Networking has helped Saul, enormously. "The community of financial economists in Australia is fairly small, and has shrunk from its high point in the late 1980s as a result of consolidation in the Australian financial services sector. Most people who the kind of work which I do have at least an Honours degree in Economics, and most of them have worked either for Treasury in Canberra as I did, or for the Reserve Bank in Sydney . You tend to discover people in the profession and if you don't know them word gets around about who's good and who isn't. I've been a beneficiary of that small circle and have also made use of it myself in staffing my own teams." Throughout his career, Saul has also shared his ideas and career aspirations with people who could help him. In the early days of his career he also tried to engage in activities that would enhance his own employability.

Saul's strategies for enhancing his employability as an economist.

• Extend your learning. (Push the boundaries beyond what you've originally learnt to cover new territory. "I'm self-taught about most foreign economies, learning about the United States and more recently, Asia, through extensive reading, using opportunities to travel to these areas, asking questions, getting onto peoples' mailing lists, etc.")
• Develop your presentation skills. (Saul's presentation skills have been largely self-taught and he is great demand as a public speaker.)
• Have a few specialist niches, e.g., public finance, economic history, some economies that are not extensively covered by others. (Discovery of these skills for Saul came about through trial and error. Conversing with others and finding out that he knew more or could contribute more to a particular topic(s) led him to recognise and develop his specific areas of expertise).
• Make the most of self-development opportunities by undertaking further training to enhance your skills. (In the 1980s, Saul studied the Securities Institute course; the Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment, at the Financial Services Institute in Australia . In 2003, ANZ put him through the Senior Executive Program at Columbia University 's Graduate School of Business in New York .

Personal attributes that have contributed to Saul's success.

• Intellectual curiosity
• Capacity for and commitment to working
• Willingness to change jobs (initiated by yourself)
• Writing and public speaking abilities

Saul readily acknowledges that there are plenty of smarter and more technically competent economists around than him. One thing he does regret is not having completed a higher degree, like a Masters or a PhD. "The fact that I don't have a higher degree has probably precluded me from getting a job similar to mine in the United States , which I would like to have done for a few years."

Capitalise on your strengths.

Saul's writing and presentation skills, which he admits he wasn't taught at university, have helped him to get the employment he's had despite competition from other applicants who may well have had superior academic credentials.

Advice for economics graduates.

"I encourage any graduate who comes to me asking for a job that one of the skills he or she will need [in this profession] is the ability to write for and speak to people who are not academic economists or indeed who might not be economists at all. When you study for your degree, you're taught to write for and speak to academic economists. They're the ones you have to convince that you know what you're talking about in order to get your degree. But that may well be the last time you need to address that audience. Economics, like most academic disciplines has a language of its own which is somewhat impenetrable to those who are not qualified in it. Indeed it's easily dismissed as gobbledygook by people who, for a variety of reasons, don't want to understand it. And, like a lot of professional disciplines, its optimal use is often as advice to others who then have to make decisions (politicians, fund managers, corporate executives, individual investors). Economists, if they are to be of any use to their employer or to the broader community, and if they are to have any kind of influence, need to be able to communicate in terms that their intended audience can understand."

"One of the things that the Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the Public Service teaches you to do well, is to write for and to speak to non-economists. It's a skill that can be taught and acquired". Saul learned to give effective presentations through plenty of practice and by initiating presentations in the early days of his career. Partly as a result, he is constantly in demand as a speaker and typically undertakes more than 150 public speaking engagements every year. For students, there are many organisations that offer opportunities to develop public speaking skills, such as Toastmasters, Rotary, and Rural Youth. For Saul, part of his experience in public speaking came through the Young Liberals in his late teens and early 20s; and there are many other similar organisations for those of different political persuasions that also provide opportunities for engaging in public speaking.

Saul suggests, "the majority of students who study economics degrees probably won't end up doing exactly what I've done, but there are lots of people in the financial services industry in Australia who have economics degrees who are doing things like investment management (equities and bonds), foreign currency trading, investment banking, arranging finance for (in many cases) quite complex transactions, or alternatively advising on and implementing economic policy in institutions such as the Reserve Bank, or the Federal and State Treasuries and other Public Service agencies."

Advice to students regarding career management.

"Nowadays employers no longer offer you a job for life. But the best employers will help you to manage your career, with the emphasis being on help you manage your career, as ultimately you are responsible for managing your own career. That means you will need to:

•   be ready to take advantage of opportunities for additional training;
•   exploit opportunities for overseas experiences (Saul regrets never having worked overseas);
•   attend conferences; and,
•   build your own networks.

"Most of the jobs I've had have 'come to me' rather than me applying directly for them - although I've had a lot of help from a number of mentors at different stages of my career. Over the past 25 years or so I would say I have made my own luck in terms of being 'out there' and involved in things that would get me noticed and I haven't had to apply for a job in that time, but I haven't taken every job I've been offered either."

Tips for economics graduates who want to find work in the industry.

"Go and work in the Reserve Bank or Treasury or one of the other economic policy-making agencies in the Federal government;

•   to hone your practical skills and applied knowledge of the Australian economy,
•   because those organisations will teach you how to write for and speak to non-economists, and
•   because you will form a network of future colleagues and prospective employers.

On being offered the role as Chief Economist at ANZ Bank.

"When I was initially approached about my current job, my response was along the lines of "You bet - Where do I sign?" The only real serious discussion I had about the job with ANZ was that it had previously been seen as a kind of 'stepping stone' for people (in every case very talented economists) coming out of Treasury or the Reserve Bank and moving on to very senior management roles at ANZ or other financial institutions (two of ANZ's most senior executives are former ANZ Chief Economists, as is the current CEO of AMP). Some of those guys only did the job for only two or three years before moving up the corporate ladder. The only stipulation I really had was that I be allowed do this job for a long time and not be expected to move on to more senior (and better paid) management roles at ANZ. I think of the job I have as the best job for an economist could have in Melbourne and I was thrilled to be asked to do it."

Ingrid Apsitis
Faculty of Business
University of Tasmania
2006