Justin Jenk

Justin Michael Spencer Jenk (born February 1960) is a British-Danish business executive, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founding partner of specialist advisory firm Raktas, and a major investor in start-up companies including Venturethree, Danfoss-Turbocor, Arcam and Neit.

During stints with management consultancies, as a partner at both McKinsey & Company and Accenture, Jenk helped build both firms' global presence as well as advised a number of international clients in the consumer goods, industrial and financial sectors. He helped to further successful bad bank approaches in Europe, notably with Securum and Swedbank.^[1]

Early life and education

Jenk was born in 1960 in Mumbai, India^[2] to Jorgen Jenk and Faith Sisman. His father was an international businessman and decorated war veteran^[3] as was his mother who became a senior stewardess for BOAC.^[4] He is related to Adam Sisman. Jenk was brought up in India, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.^[5]

Jenk attended both Westminster School and St Paul’s School in London. In 1978 from the latter, he won a Dean Rusk scholarship to Davidson College, an independent liberal arts college in North Carolina. He then attended the University of Oxford. A varsity sportsman, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography in 1982. Jenk joined Swire Group in 1982. He worked primarily for the Group’s transport interests in Australia, Pacific, Asia and Gulf regions. Later he attended Harvard Business School receiving his MBA in 1988.^[6][7]

Career

After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1988, Jenk joined the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company in its Stockholm office. During his career, he opened and managed eight new offices across the world including Rio de Janeiro, Athens and Moscow. He also co-founded McKinsey’s Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice in London.^[8]

In 1992, at the height of the financial crisis in Sweden, Jenk advised the Swedish authorities to create a bad bank, Securum with the purpose of taking on and unwinding non-performing loans and bad debt from the state-owned bank, Nordbanken.^[9] Securum took over a quarter of the bank’s credit portfolio, successfully protecting the capital and liquidity of the surviving good bank and its operations.^[10][11]

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Jenk launched McKinsey’s Moscow office in 1993. He advised Russian companies and businessmen on how to capitalise on the growing consumer and financial markets.^[9] He assisted the development of telecoms company VimpelCom Ltd., LOMO, the Hermitage Museum, Alfa Capital as well as extensive work in the food & drinks sectors, such as with the creation of Russian Standard and formation of Elbrewery.

In 2001, Accenture appointed Jenk as part of its transformation team as well as to co-lead its Restructuring/Mergers and Acquisitions practice with a focus on Europe and Asia.^[12][13] Two years later, Jenk was approached by Dimitris Daskalopoulos, owner of the then loss-making Greek consumer goods company Delta Holding, to be its CEO. As CEO, Jenk improved the performance of the company through turnaround strategies, which led to the merger between Delta and Chipita in 2006.^[14] The merged entity became Vivartia.^[15] In 2007, Vivartia was sold to private equity interests for €1.4 billion and he resigned as part of the change of ownership. Subsequently in 2008, Jenk faced allegation relating to the trading of shares in Delta. In 2015 the Greek Supreme Court ruled that there was no case to answer for and all charges against Jenk were vacated and dropped.^[16]

In 2007 Jenk founded Raktas, providing growth and restructuring services. In 2008, Jenk co-founded European Resolution Capital, a specialist bank restructuring firm.^[17] The company worked with governments and financial institutions during the 2008-2012 financial crisis.^[18][19] Jenk advised on the creation of Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) in 2008 and he supported the creation of SAREB in Spain to help the authorities manage toxic assets of four nationalized financial institutions. During the period 2009-2011, Jenk was involved in the rescue of Sweden’s Swedbank from near insolvency.^[20][21] With the support of the Swedish central bank (“Riksbanken”), the CEO of Swedbank Michael Wolf retained Jenk to help lead the formation and management of its bad bank operations.^[20][22]

Jenk’s activities with specialist team and Wolf were instrumental in rescuing Swedbank and subsequently stabilising the Baltic and Swedish economies.^[23] This work was recognized by the Estonian state awarding Swedbank the Cross of Terra Mariana.^[24]

Through Raktas, Jenk has worked as an advisor and business angel with Starbreeze Studios, Arcam; magnetic bearing compressors, Danfoss-Turbocorp; wine distributor, Trekronorvin, Ericsson, George Berkowski and start-up Neit.^[25]

Work in education

Jenk has also worked in the education helping performance of universities. As a board member of the Open University’s International Advisory Board, he helped to support the global development of the school.^[26] In 2012, Jenk joined the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), a privately owned university in Sweden, to help the Dean, Rolf Wolf, turn around the university’s weak performance.^[27] Jenk set up a customised executive training programme, called ‘Pathway to Premium’ for Danske Bank’s investment advisors. It led to increased revenues for SSE and in 2013 was awarded the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Professional Development Award.^[28]

The restructuring of the SSE, which included productivity improvements and cancelling the creation of a satellite university in Russia, was ultimately a success. His work prompted Jenk to be attacked by a small number of academics who wanted to see the satellite university established. Details of the Greek legal case, which was known to the SSE but was then still unresolved, were leaked to the media. Jenk stepped down in 2013, his goal of improving SSE’s performance realised.^[29][30]

Jenk is a guest-lecturer at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and its Geography Department.^[7] He is also a public speaker on topical business issues.^[31] He was Chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Catherine's British School in Athens and is part of the Working Group at Keble College, Oxford.^[32]

References