In 1993 he made a serious plan to participate in the Olympic Games of ‘96. Emiel van den Heiligenberg (pictured above raising his hands) trained 14 times a week, hours a day. Until, among other things, a hernia threw a spanner in the works. The competition rowing of those days still plays a role in his function as head of the asset allocation team of LGIM.
“My parents thought I had gone crazy. I went to see them and told them I wanted to spend the next three years focusing entirely on rowing, hoping to compete in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. They didn’t care about sport, thought I was wasting my life. Shouldn’t I have graduated as soon as possible, made a career in the business world? Of course, my father could not prohibit me from doing so, as I was well over 18, but he would have preferred it if I had. In the end, I said, ‘I am here to tell you, not to ask your permission.’ I will never forget that conversation.
Never standing out, constantly adapting, complete focus. I see a lot of parallels between rowing and investing. They are both results businesses. An investment result is clear, to clients, senior management, peers. It’s the same in sport: you either win or you don’t. Hard work is no guarantee of results.
Hard work is no guarantee for results. You hear fantastic stories of people who achieve gold at the Games and say that gold is the reward for their hard work. But there are hundreds of people who also worked very hard, but did not make it. Your form of the day, whether or not you have covid, a misstep just before the finish. In sports, there is always a certain amount of luck involved, of not being able to influence things.
In investing, there is no direct link between putting a lot of effort into something and achieving a certain result. Sometimes an outcome is inexplicable. That is what I try to pass on to my team.
Rowing
I was 20 years old and had just rowed for a year with rowing club Vidar in Tilburg, where I studied at the university. I was always sporty, but not exceptional. The club organised an ergometer test, with which everyone could measure their best time. When I had completed my 2 kilometres on the machine, I noticed that people were looking at me in amazement. It turned out that I had rowed a time that was not at all appropriate for someone with so little rowing experience. At that moment I realised: if I go for this, I have a chance.
The longer I thought about it, the more the idea of competitive rowing appealed to me. I had always been competitive. Eventually, in 1989, I started training seriously and rowed my first race in the light eight six months later. Over time, I went from an eight-man boat to a four-man, then a two-man.
In 1993, my rowing buddy and I started competing against top national teams and teams from foreign universities. We heard that at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, light rowing would be on the programme for the first time. Our estimate was that twenty rowers in the Netherlands - including us - stood a chance of winning a place in the four-man boat. We made a serious plan to do everything we could over the next three years to be part of it.
We trained at least twice a day. I started with a few hours of boat training before going to college, did strength training in the afternoon and sometimes went back to the club in the evening to row. Parties and other hobbies were often out of the question; and I had to keep a close eye on my weight. The maximum weight for my class was 72.5 kg. A day before the race, I was often still three kilos overweight. With training, moisture management and a lot of sweat before a weigh-in on the day of the competition, I was able to weigh in at the right weight.
I gave it my all, but got injured. A hernia. I had to stop racing, I coached my rowing buddy until the national championships in 1994, but I focused on my graduation. In 1997 I got my first job in the financial industry at ING, and in 2000 I joined Fortis in an investment team.”
Being satisfied
“The hardest part of both sports and investing is being satisfied. Rowing is fantastic, if it goes fast. Then to win, that is wonderful. Associations, fellow countrymen: everyone comes along to congratulate you. Yet that fantastic feeling lasts only a short time. Meanwhile, you become more and more critical, you set the bar higher. So actually, there are not many moments when you are super happy as an athlete.
The moment you are number one in your peer group with your investments, there is little left to wish for, or if you have already met the investment target of a client halfway through the year. Yet there are always things that can be improved. I tend to constantly focus on things that could or should be better. What I try to do, but I don’t think I am very good at, is telling people: when things are going well, we must enjoy it. Take the pressure off. I do try to build in time to enjoy it with each other, to go to the pub together or out to dinner to celebrate together.
But I find it easier to say that to others than to myself. But I think that also has to do with my growth mindset, to which I partly owe my success in sport. Success is driven by three things: talent, drive and hard work. I had talent because of my build, which allowed me to just compete in the light weight class. And I was willing to put in a lot of time, put in the hours, ask for feedback and deny myself things.
I often refer to the sport in my team. Many aspects are similar. I want to get the best out of my team, that is my ambition. My gold medal for investing is to build a world-class investment team. That is never finished, and I talk a lot about that. It is usually not difficult to get people on board. When I started at LGIM eight years ago, I was allowed to build a team from scratch. That helps, because then you can hire like-minded people.
Generally, people in the investment industry are also competitive. And if you want to be the best, you have to have the courage to say goodbye to people who do not fit the values or culture of a team. That does not mean they are bad. Think of the rowers again: if you put the eight best rowers in the world in a boat together, it doesn’t mean they will go the fastest together. You have to create a group that has the same rowing style, maybe even fits together socially. That’s exactly how it is with an investment team.”
This article is part of the Fondsnieuws summer series: sport and investing, in which former top athletes and current fanatics draw parallels between sport and the investment industry. This is the first episode. Tim Soetens of Allianz and Michael Vakalopoulos of Pimco will follow in the coming weeks.