“I am certain that, over the next 30 years, Dorsum will become a global player.”
Our CEO, Mariann Mészáros gave an extensive interview to one of the most prestigeous financial perodicals, HVG, available now in print (until Wednesday, July 1st) and digital form. Click here for the full article in Hungarian, or read on for the English translation.
What did Dorsum sell 30 years ago?
The company set out to serve the then-emerging investment and asset management market, a niche market segment, and grew up together with the capital market by providing clients with solutions and products that enabled investment services, securities trading, and the settlement of those transactions.
Although at the beginning we worked with small brokerage firms, and later, as we grew continuously, with financial institutions, we essentially carried out the same work as the builder of OTP’s entire securities sales network, as a supporter of the largest Romanian fund manager and distributor, and as a supplier of asset management solutions to the Raiffeisen Group and other Western European clients.
Since its foundation, Dorsum has operated in the same field: it develops and provides IT and digitalization solutions for the banking and financial sector, mainly in the areas of investment and asset management, from back-office systems to more product-based, scalable platform logic. All of this has happened through organic development and growth based on the company’s own strength.
Before the turn of the millennium, Dorsum appeared frequently in the business media, and in the first half of the 2010s less often, but still occasionally. In recent years, however, this presence has disappeared. What is the reason for this?
On the one hand, our company has been a market leader in Hungary for years, so the focus is on nurturing existing client relationships, which we can primarily ensure through direct contact. On the other hand, when it comes to our innovation results and product developments, we communicate actively, although specifically toward professional forums.
My answer is different when we talk about our company’s international expansion. When a Hungarian company that has grown into a large enterprise sets out on this path, there are also lessons and opportunities from a marketing and communications perspective. Dorsum communicates strongly in the international market, because both the name and the brand need to be introduced in order to build trust.
How does the balance sheet of the fintech revolution look from the head of a successful company? These small companies arrived in the banking sector and financial market with the promise that their solutions would create a revolution and replace old, slow, cumbersome, and expensive financial services. By now, every financial institution has embraced this technology and incorporated parts of it into its processes. Who defeated whom?
In my opinion, fintech companies and their fast solutions were exactly what the financial sector needed. However, because the investment and asset management market is highly complex and its processes are intricate, individual fintech ventures cannot simply enter that space. I think it is wrong to summarize the situation by saying that fintech companies have now been “devoured” by the traditional financial sector. Today, even out of self-interest, traditional market players can no longer think in terms of not treating those arriving with new technology as partners.
When you moved from a German multinational to Dorsum four years ago, this also meant a change in the management of what had previously been a company fundamentally associated with one leader. Róbert Kő continued to handle expansion and business development tasks, while operations and the implementation of group-level strategy came under the CEO’s direction. What was the main challenge for you?
Previously, I worked for 25 years at various Deutsche Telekom companies, where I initially had responsibilities in business areas and, in the final period, in HR. As a board member, I was in a strong position, but I increasingly thought about wanting to return to business. I saw that over the years Dorsum had achieved incredible results, and at the same time had reached a company size where certain fundamental changes would be necessary to ensure that both the company’s value and its future direction could be carried forward in a stable way.
When you arrived in 2022, it was said that the new CEO, coming from a large corporate environment and having managed large teams, would ensure the further growth of the private limited company. Then, as now, essentially the same can be said about the company: it provides services in ten countries with a team of nearly 300 people. What has changed?
On the one hand, the company today pays more conscious attention than before to having a longer-term vision and a detailed strategy for one to three years. We need to know which port we want to steer the ship toward, and for that it is not enough to see only the current year. On the other hand, we have translated scalability into product-based thinking. Previously, Dorsum fundamentally provided solutions based on client needs and for specific clients, but neither the market nor the company can now afford, when a new client arrives, to start building everything from scratch, hiring the same number of people, and building in the same way as before.
The third change in the transformation of the team was shaping the culture. This was one of the essential elements of becoming international, and it was something for which, at first, I was not the most beloved person in the company.
As a Hungarian firm, Dorsum had a strong corporate culture, but by now this has changed in such a way that we have become a corporate group, with subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria, and local representation in England and in the Central and Eastern European region.
I am willing to admit that at first I was a lot (and also a shock) for the organization, and I would be lying if I claimed that my arrival brought about a miracle. In fact, during the first period, I also accelerated what had otherwise been a very low level of employee turnover at Dorsum. The organization had been operating in such a different and accustomed setup that, at the beginning, it experienced changes of almost any scale and volume with greater difficulty.
A team can only be led through such a journey if one also has humility.
On the one hand, I had to learn this sector, in which my colleagues helped me a great deal; on the other hand, I had to calibrate how quickly we could move forward in this transformation while preserving existing values. It was important to communicate the directions – and what we were doing and why – clearly, so that credibility would stand on stable foundations, and so that there would be continuity while also making clear where we would change. I believe that by now everyone understands what the goal is and where we are headed. This also required new “ambassadors”, a new level of seniority whose members did not come to the company merely to execute what they’re told, but also because a changing company needs people who can channel in experience from elsewhere. This is a process that, at the beginning, precisely because of my large corporate background, I thought would go faster; I expected it to take about a year.
As CEO, has this been your biggest mistake so far?
Yes. My mistake was that I underestimated how quickly I could have a meaningful impact on the organization. Based on my previous HR background and experience, I thought this ship would start moving much faster in the direction in which I started to steer, and that everyone’s commitment to this would also be on the same level. We are past it now, but originally, I planned this for one year; in the end, it took the most part of a year and a half.
What might the next 30 years bring for the company?
I am certain that, over the next 30 years, Dorsum will become a global player. Our expansion strategy in Western Europe and the CEE region is already working, and Dorsum is on track to reach global scale – whether through its own growth, through partnerships, or through acquisitions. Of course, we will continue to rely on and work closely with our existing clients. At the same time, our goal is to make this next stage of growth happen in the same way we have built the company so far: by focusing on the asset management and capital markets technology market, and by drawing on our professional expertise and the strong partnerships we have developed with our clients.
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