Chief Executive Officer
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
[PNR]

For more than 30 years after its inception in the early 1970s as a specialized interbank messaging network, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication never experienced negative growth. The industry-owned cooperative’s 9,000 customers benefited from lower fees as volumes rose and unit costs fell. Then came the financial crisis in 2008. “It hit us hard,” explains CEO Lázaro Campos. “In 2009 we saw a reduction in business for the first time. We lost two years of growth.” Campos, who joined La Hulpe, Belgium–based Swift in 1983 and became CEO in 2007, resolved to reduce overhead while retaining the un-utilitylike competitive edge instilled by his predecessor Leonard Schrank, whom Campos had served as banking division head. A two-year reengineering effort cut €90 million ($144 million) from the annual budget, while the Swift 2015 strategic plan points toward revenue-generating opportunities in such areas as consulting, trade matching, digital identity and collateral management. Last year, Swift made its first-ever acquisition, of SunGard’s Ambit Messaging Hub. “The cost-cutting program was a signal to our customers to look at us differently,” says Campos, 48. “Quality of service was always a hallmark of Swift. But efficient? Maybe not.”