Not many bank chairmen would credit the futurist Herman Kahn for their career breaks. Fewer still for their achievements. Yet listening to Sir Win Bischoff describe his professional life, you soon learn that if it wasn’t for Khan’s book The Emerging Japanese Superstate, things may well have turned out differently.

Bischoff came by Kahn’s extended essay in 1971 when, already an employee of Schroders for several years, he was given a copy by Managing Director James Wolfensohn. “Wolfensohn was trying to convince me to set up Schroders operations in Hong Kong, but I didn’t want to go,” says Bischoff. The bachelor lifestyle afforded to him by working between London and New York was, he felt, too good to give up. Yet Kahn’s book changed all that.

Kahn argued that the phenomenal success of Japan’s economy in the latter half of the 20th century would have an astounding effect on surrounding regions. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and most notably Hong Kong would outperform even the growth of Japan.

“The book is about 300 pages long, and by page 60, I was convinced,” says Bischoff. He wanted to go to Hong Kong for only two years rather than the three years suggested by Wolfensohn. He ended up staying for 12.

In that time Bischoff achieved a minor Asian miracle for the bank – a fact he accepts with a good dose of modesty. He was able to keep his head despite three busts and four booms, and drove Schroders towards commercial success. It also meant that by his return to the UK in 1983, he had the track record and optimism of a man riding all the successes of capitalism.

The way in

Bischoff’s route into Schroders – indeed into banking itself – started somewhat as a joke. Following his father’s advice to work in financial services “where the people don’t seem so bright – you’ll do well”, Bischoff found himself seeking his first serious role in 1966 as a law graduate. “Schroders was looking for older trainees who had been to Harvard Business School. I was a 24-year-old law graduate who had been to New York University,” he says. Yet Bischoff passed several rounds of interviews and, in successfully establishing the bank in Hong Kong, confirmed his employer’s early confidence in him.

After his stint in Hong Kong, Bischoff returned to London in 1983 at the request of Schroders’ Chairman Lord Airlie. Soon after, at the age of 43, he was made Group Chief Executive. “At that time, a whole generation of bankers above me had been exposed to the hardships of the 1970s. So Schroders decided they wanted someone who had avoided all that. They effectively skipped a generation of more experienced candidates, and went for a younger CEO.”

During his time at the top of Schroders – a spell that saw him become Chairman in 1995 – the share price increased by 29 times.

Yet all good things must come to an end and in 1999 the strategic decision to sell the investment bank side of Schroders to CitiGroup proved the catalyst for change. Citi was interested in the deal only with the proviso that Bischoff went with the business. “It was not an easy decision: at Schroders I was the CEO of a FTSE 100 company and the move to Citi meant giving that up. But making the move was the right thing strategically,” he says.

Bischoff’s faith in strategy is unwavering, despite the fact that he has also been graced by fine minds at the top: six of the executives he hired at Schroders are currently chairmen at FTSE 50 firms. “The first secret of success is the business model, by a long way. The larger the company is, the law of averages says the more likely it is to have average management. So what distinguishes you? It’s the business model.”

Born in 1941 in Aachen, Germany, Bischoff moved with his parents to South Africa in 1955 and later graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Travel is a theme that has featured heavily in his career, with the bi-monthly commute between London and New York in his early years. To this day, at the age of 71, Bischoff estimates that he spends a third of his spare time travelling, including some 25 trips to the US per year. Fortunately his constitution and vigorous work ethic are up to the challenge and he has been able to integrate successfully the rigours of travelling into his life. The same applies to the tribulations of working in the industry’s top roles.

“I have never suffered from stress. It is important to know at a very early age that stresses can be overcome,” he adds. “I had only one really stressful moment in my career: in Hong Kong, a colleague left and I thought the business could not possibly survive without him. I was so worried one night that I only got to sleep at 5am. But when I woke up at 7.30am I had an answer. In business there always is an answer.”

These are the types of medicinal words you can easily imagine Bischoff prescribing to the younger executives under his watch. “In banking it is important there is a maturity gap between the chairman and CEO. A 40-year-old CEO will far more likely listen to a 60-year-old chairman than he would a 43-year-old.” Bischoff says you need the wisdom and often a good chairman is someone who has been a CEO. “If they have had a good chairman above them as CEO, they will know what to do when they are chairman.”

In his own case, Bischoff lists few major influences – most notable is Gordon Richardson, Schroders, chairman from 1962 to 1973, who went on to become Bank of England Governor. Another is Lady Luck. “I’m minded of what Napoleon said when asked what he looked for in his generals: ‘A lucky general is a successful general.’ Someone who is perennially lucky is someone that works very hard.” Bischoff sees himself as no exception to this rule.

That hard work paid off again in 2009 when Bischoff was asked by the government at the time to assume the chair at Lloyds Banking Group, which had got into some troubles during the financial crisis. “I’m proud of what I’ve achieved at Lloyds. We have outperformed every other bank in the country in terms of share price rise.”

Bischoff retired from from Lloyds in April 2014 (Lord Norman Blackwell is his successor), Bischoff is brutally honest about those wanting to follow in his footsteps: there are so few senior positions that it’s best not to try. “Just take things stage by stage and let your own results, luck and timing take you further,” he says. “You aim for a destination you can see, not something over the horizon.”

CV snapshot

2009 – Appointed Chairman of Lloyds Banking Group

2000 – Becomes Chairman of Citigroup Europe and is given a knighthood

1983 – Becomes Chairman of Schroders, and is appointed Group Chief Executive in 1984

1971 – Appointed Managing Director of Schroders Asia Limited in Hong Kong

1966 – Joins J. Henry Schroder & Co

1961 – Graduates from University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg with a Bachelor of Commerce degree

Culture change

Sir Win Bischoff is an important advocate of the 30% Club, which lobbies for boards of major companies to have at least 30% female members. “The most serious talent available to us at Schroders were women, because most of the other investment banks would employ only men,” he says. “Half the talent base is female – to exclude yourself from that is ridiculous.”

Yet it is diversification that is important. “If Lehman Brothers was called Lehman Sisters it still would have collapsed,” he adds. “The important thing is diversity; you need to have different people’s views and in my experience women tend to be more imaginative in overcoming obstacles.”

Where the 30% Club aims to change the culture in the boardroom, Bischoff sees room for cultural improvement elsewhere in financial services: “Currently we’re seeing a move away from caveat emptor, especially in wholesale banking. The view that commercial clients should know what they are getting into is a perfectly broad philosophical view that many of us had. But there is a view that if you are powerful, you should look after customers that are less knowledgeable than yourself – the underlying tenet in retail banking. Now boards and CEOs on the wholesale side believe they have duties beyond just making money for the firm. Caveat emptor is all well and good but even then you have an obligation to be transparent, to explain.”