After travelling the globe on his way up the banking ladder, Bob Moore settled here nine years ago and is proud to call Guernsey home, as Rosie Allsopp discovered NO ONE in their right mind could call Bob Moore a stick-in-the-mud.

Originally hailing from Belfast, Mr Moore has racked up former addresses in France, New York, Paraguay, Miami and Luxembourg. Now Bank of Butterfield’s managing director has lived in Guernsey longer than anywhere else since leaving Northern Ireland.

‘As a family, Guernsey is our home and that’s the most important thing,’ he said.

‘We feel very committed to it.’

Such is his commitment to the island, he is also current chairman of the Guernsey International Business Association, an umbrella organisation representing the many different arms of the finance industry.

‘It is something that I would view, and the bank would view, as a small way for us to make part of our contribution to the community.

‘The business world is a very important part of this community and that’s the spirit in which I would view my involvement with the International Bankers’ Association, the Association of Guernsey Banks [he is a former chairman of both] and Giba.’

While Giba has seen its profile raised enormously in the time he has been at the helm, Mr Moore said that had more to do with circumstances rather than any intention to push it into the spotlight.

‘There have been a number of issues that are really important to the whole community and inevitably they were on the go while I happened to be chairman.’

Mr Moore took over at Butterfield nine years ago from Graham Brooks, who moved to the bank’s head office in Bermuda.

Prior to working at Butterfield, Mr Moore had worked for Lloyds Bank International since graduating from Oxford.

His first experience of living abroad was while he was waiting to take his place at Pembroke College to read French.

‘I did a diploma course at Dijon University which was very exciting, very different and a bit of a contrast with Northern Ireland.’

The four-year degree involved a year living overseas so he went back to France, this time to the Burgundy town of Chalon-sur-Saone assisting with English-teaching at a local high school.

‘It was good experience and left me with a great respect for the teaching profession but didn’t leave me with a desire to follow teaching as a possible career path.’

He also realised by the end of the degree course that he did not want to continue studying.

‘I wanted to look at other ways of using my language skills and that seemed to point to international marketing or international banking.’

He interviewed for both types of job and plumped for a position with Lloyds Bank International, joining when the organisation had recently made its acquisition of the Bank of London and South America.

Mr Moore embarked on the company’s training programme that comprised four months of concentrated classroom instruction on the fundamentals of banking and two years’ branch experience.

That took the 23-year-old to Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital city, an experience he thoroughly enjoyed.

‘I liked that it was so different from Northern Ireland and England. It’s subtropical with a real Latin American heritage. And the people in Paraguay are absolutely wonderful, very friendly and welcoming. I loved it, it’s a wonderful country.’

He spent a year there and in that time met his wife, Marian, who was born in Paraguay to Spanish parents.

The newly-married couple were then transferred to the Miami branch of LBI.

‘It was more than 25 years ago since we were there, but we still have great friends there.’

Mr Moore’s work centred on commercial and corporate lending in Miami with an element of private banking. Many clients were Latin American family-owned corporations.

It was while the couple were moving to New York from Miami that their son was born.

It coincided with the Latin American crisis in the 1980s, which was triggered by Mexico defaulting on its sovereign debt in 1982.

‘The banking community was working with the public and private sector in different Latin American countries working to restructure and get back on an even keel.

‘My first role in New York was to work on the debt restructuring of Mexico and Venezuela, which was a fascinating experience and gave a certain amount of insight into some macroeconomic issues as well.’

The restructuring reached a natural break, at which point he was appointed as a vice-president with responsibility for manpower planning for LBI’s North American division.

‘It was a fairly in-depth introduction to various aspects of personnel management including recruitment.’

Though he worked in New York, Mr Moore took the long commute every day from New Jersey where the family had settled.

‘We looked at whether the idea of bringing up a family in New York itself was the best option. But we opted for New Jersey and got a lovely combination of living pretty much in the countryside with New York just to the east. New York’s got a permanent buzz and is a really dynamic place. It’s a great place to be in from the point of view of doing business.’

Mr Moore ran the international private banking branch in New York for several years but the family moved to the not-so-glamorous location of Haywards Heath in Sussex when he was asked to spend some time in the private banking division of Lloyds’ head office.

They spent three years there before moving again to Luxembourg.

‘We really enjoyed Luxembourg as a place. Some people call it a bit boring but we found it very stimulating because of the tremendous mix of nationalities all living in the same place.’

Mr Moore made the move to Butterfield Bank nine years ago. It involved coming to Guernsey, where he has been ever since.

‘It’s a fabulous place. We felt at home as a family and I felt at home in a business sense very quickly. We see it as home.

‘Our son and daughter have been here for a very large, important part of their lives. It’s a fantastic place to spend one’s adolescence because it gives them freedom to grow and develop in a place that is a relatively safe environment and where you can find out what’s what.

‘It’s also very cosmopolitan. I used to say that when one is in a working environment, you can be doing everything that you can do in the other places I have been based. And then, when you step outside the office, you can enjoy the wonderful place that is Guernsey.’