Romke Noordhuis (left) and Jeroen Kirschbaum, the past and present country manager of ExxonMobil Hungary.

The latter fact can be laid squarely at the door of COVID-19. Around about this time, Noordhuis, a runner up in this year’s BBJ Expat CEO of the Year awards, should have been in Houston, Texas, the base for his new global position as functional general auditor for the downstream business. For now it is unclear when he will be able to cross the Atlantic.

“The U.S. is closed, with the full suspension of non-immigration visas (work permits, effectively) for the rest of the year. After that, who knows?” he tells the Budapest Business Journal in an exclusive interview.

A global role, by its nature, can be performed from anywhere with good internet and phone connections, and Noordhuis even has a “small team based in Budapest.” But it is clear where he should be. “The business line management I support sits in Houston.”

The U.S. city is well known to the Dutch manager; indeed, four years ago he moved to Budapest to take up the country manager’s role from a five-year posting as a treasurer in Houston.

“It’s not new, I am comfortable there. In fact, our children will return to the same school they were in previously.” Once they get there, of course.

The situation means successor Jeroen Kirschbaum has been able to enjoy a longer handover than might otherwise have been the case. But Noordhuis is conscious of giving Kirschbaum his own space and not hanging around like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

“We will sign off [the handover] this week and then I will move upstairs; he won’t see me again unless he wants to, of course.”

Significant Opportunities

By his own admission, Noordhuis prefers making plans for the future to looking back, but I ask him what highlights he would pick from his time here. “One thing that stands out is the growth in people; four years ago there were 1,250, now we have around 1,800, and more to come.”

He adds: “It is not just the number of people, but their quality, and the opportunities we are able to offer these people are significantly different. That is a process that was on-going before I got here, but we are really seeing this now. The types of activities are quite different from what they were four years ago.”

In order to accommodate that growing staff, ExxonMobil will move to new offices at GTC Pillar in 2022. Noordhuis describes it as a “milestone investment”, and emblematic of the company’s commitment to Budapest.

“The strategic cooperation agreement we signed with the government for sure was also a big step. It was the headline item on the evening news in Hungary.”

More recently, there has been the COVID-19 crisis. Noordhuis says ExxonMobil already had a pandemic plan “ready to go” as part of its business continuity planning, and had even run occasional drills.

“So, we sort of knew what we had to do, but it is obviously different when you have to start applying it. I am really proud how the organization responded in a very professional and resilient way.” With teams split up and working from home, communication became a real point of focus.

“There were a lot of different sessions organized, including informal, virtual coffee chats,” he says.

Building Forward

In picking its next country manager for Hungary, ExxonMobil not only picked another Dutch native, but one who had been based in the United States; Kirschbaum had even worked in Houston, where he led the digital transformation for ExxonMobil’s finance functions world-wide, but since 2018, he had been a planning manager at the corporate headquarters in Dallas.

One of the major tasks will be to oversee the move to the new “world class” offices, and to build on the work of his predecessor. “Romke has taken the organization to a new level in terms of growing the capabilities of our employees, and making the strategic value of the organization better understood. It is clear to me that is the right direction, with clear and transparent goals for the organization,” Kirschbaum says.

“Obviously, with the uncertainty around the business environment, we will have to tweak it here and there and learn as we go, but the continued investment in the people, in the external relationships, and being part of the business ecosystem in Hungary; building on the branding, building on the awareness and the understanding, internal and external, of the value proposition that we have for people to work here long-term.”

More immediately, though, he will have to navigate a path to the new normal. “I think the biggest challenge is that we are still dealing with unprecedented levels of uncertainty. We are slowly getting comfortable with the new normal, but we don’t really know what that is yet. It might take a while before we get back to the way things were, if we ever do,” he says.

“The focus is to keep employees safe, healthy and provide them with the flexibility to balance both the personal challenges they might have as well as their work priorities.”

Walk through ExxonMobil’s normally bustling Budapest office and it is striking how few people you see. Physical distancing in the office is clearly not a particular challenge just yet.

Kirschbaum says about 50% of the staff are still working from home, or working from the office on flexible shift patterns. There will be no rush to mandate everyone back full-time anytime soon, he says.

But let’s leave the final word with Noordhuis. What will he miss, once he is finally able to leave Hungary?

“First of all the organization. I have loved being part of this team. […] My family and I have really loved calling Budapest home. All five of us have enjoyed being in this great city, just walking around Downtown, but also the Buda Hills; the history, the food, the wine especially: Villány is my favorite part of the country outside of Budapest.”