AGSM part of George's High Performance Career

AUTHOR: Lachlan Colquhoun   DATE: 08.12.05   ISSUE 3, 2005
For George Frazis, his time at AGSM was part of a career change which has seen him go from an electrical engineer servicing high performance RAAF fighter-bombers, to a senior position with one of Australia’s largest banks.

High performance, however, has always been a constant in the Frazis career. He graduated with honours in his Bachelor of Electronics Engineering degree from Curtin University, and his time as a business student saw him win numerous awards, such as the Bain Company Prize and Pioneer International Prize for graduating first in finance at AGSM.

Today, after stints at the Boston Consulting Group and the Commonwealth Bank, Frazis is executive general manager for business and private banking at the National Australia Bank, where he overseas 4000 business banking specialists in addition to the NAB’s burgeoning private banking business.

Frazis realised that, for the longer term, he needed a different environment and chose AGSM to be the catalyst for that transition
Photo: George Frazis

“The reality is that I always had the intention of getting into the business side of things, even when I was in the air force,” says Frazis.

“I was reasonably ambitious and fairly driven and keen to progress based on my performance, and I was interested in being in an environment that rewarded performance and enabled me to progress based on that.”

Although he enjoyed his time in the RAAF, Frazis realised that, for the longer term, he needed a different environment and chose AGSM to be the catalyst for that transition.

“Study for me was something I really enjoyed and I absolutely loved my time at AGSM, it was quite refreshing,” he says.

“There was a downside in that you had to get used to not earning money, and at that point of my life it was tough because we had two children and my wife, although a laywer, hadn’t been admitted and had to do a six month college of law, so we had no income to start with.

“But I think I came about second in the year so I managed to get a Commonwealth Scholarship, and I also got a summer position at the Boston Consulting Group, and then it started to get quite a bit easier.”

His performance as one of the top students in his year also gave Frazis the opportunity to go on exchange to the Wharton School in Pennsylvania, which “cemented his interest’ in finance.

“That period exposed me to the brilliant lecturers at Wharton and that was a fantastic aspect to the AGSM,” he says.

“It also really did show me that the education we got at the AGSM compared with the best in the world.”

After graduation with his MBA, Frazis continued his association with the Boston Consulting Group and spent eight years there in Sydney, New Zealand and also in London.

From there he moved to the CBA, where he managed the bank’s institutional and business services area, as well as heading the private bank before moving to his current position at the NAB on October 2004.

There he has stabilised the Business and Private Banking operation, which is the NAB’s primary cash earning business, and the bank’s share of the business lending market has gained more than 2.7 p.c. under his tenure.

“Business and private banking is probably one of the bank’s largest businesses and is really what the NAB is all about, and this period of turnaround is a very exciting time to be at the NAB,” says Frazis.