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Who's who: Bo H. Holmgreen

Bo H. Holmgreen, the CEO of Transoft International, has led his currency management software company to a spot on Deloitte & Touche's 'Fast 50' for North Carolina and a client roster filled with financial institutions such as Wachovia Corp., Fifth Third Bank and the UK's Abbey National. A laid-back personality is just one of the surprises he has in store for those expecting a high-powered executive type.

August 10, 2003

Bo H. Holmgreen, the chief executive officer of currency management software provider Transoft International, Inc., has built a career on surprises.

Holmgreen, who was born in Denmark, notes that many clients seem surprised he's a Dane rather than a Dwayne when they've been told that they're meeting with someone named Bo from North Carolina.

Tom Wilhelm, former vice president of currency operations at Transoft client First Union Bank, said Holmgreen's unfailing honesty was a bit of a surprise.

Bo Holmgreen

"I always admired his willingness to share issues with me, whether good or bad," Wilhelm said. "I knew he would tell me if there was a problem, and we would work on solving it together."

Wilhelm, who recently began a consulting business called Vault Optimization Services, counts Holmgreen and Transoft among his first clients.

Mellow management

While one associates a certain type of Type A personality with executives in Holmgreen's position, in contrast he is "so laid back and patient," said his longtime assistant, Turid Kaehny.

Kaehny was so taken with Holmgreen's management style that she followed him from SDM International, the software company where both were employed before Holmgreen founded Transoft with two colleagues in Cary, N.C., in 1992.

"I go to him ranting and raving and he's so calm, he makes you calm," Kaehny said.

Once the entire company was working on an important project and the atmosphere was tense, she added. "One of the guys came in and said 'What we need is four more Bos in this office.'"

Kaehny lauded Holmgreen's team-building skills. "He always tries to instill in us that we work with each other rather than for each other," she said.

"A great team spirit is everything at a small company," said Holmgreen, whose multi-national staff of about 40 is based around the globe in countries such as Canada, England and South Africa. Transoft has clients on six continents.

"I see some of (my employees) only once a year at our annual users' conference," he said, noting that many of them telecommute. "It's a big challenge getting everyone in the same room together and all moving in the same direction, but it's fun too. When you get the right people, it doesn't matter where they go; you'll do anything to keep them."

A world view

After obtaining degrees in electrical engineering and business administration from the Technical University of Denmark, Holmgreen worked for Alcatel CR Systems, a division of the French company devoted to developing EFT systems. He ended up there in the merger mania that characterized the early 1980s after his original employer, a Danish computer manufacturer called Chr. Rovsing A/S, was taken over by ITT Inc. and then by Alcatel.

His biggest coup was helping create Dancard, the first nationwide EFT/POS system, which is still in use in Denmark today. The global nature of the EFT business fascinated him. "If you develop one system, you can move it, and it basically works the same way elsewhere," Holmgreen said.

Yet, he added, there are fine differences. European programmers tend to rely too much on standards and American programmers not enough. "Our strength comes from combining the best of both worlds," he said.

Even more important, he said, "While business is global from a technology standpoint, from a cultural standpoint it isn't."

He gained an appreciation for cultural differences through a heavy travel schedule -- he's logged more than three million miles in a frequent flyer program -- as well as his expatriate status. His wife Elizabeth and three children visit Denmark for six weeks each summer. While work doesn't allow Holmgreen to take vacations of that length, he cherishes shorter annual or bi-annual trips home.

In fact, Holmgreen still finds time to visit the library where he worked after school from ages 13 to 26, listening to records that were being returned. "It was the greatest job in the world," he said. "They had a huge farewell party for me when I finally left. They had seen me grow up, after all."

The job instilled a love of literature and music that Holmgreen continues to enjoy in his limited free time. "I play all kinds of music. It drives the kids crazy," he said.

Holmgreen's international roots led him to create a more general product that could be adapted for different customers without having to completely rewrite the software. "It's OK to design a product for one customer, but you have to think about all of the other customers who might use it," he said.

The cheese doesn't stand alone

He's seeing "more competitors coming out of the woodwork" as interest in cash forecasting tools such as Transoft's OptiCa$h grows, Holmgreen said.

In the '70s and '80s, he said, the focus was on linking EFT authorization systems. The emphasis shifted to monitoring ATMs and maintaining uptime in the '90s. Now, he said, "People have realized that if they can better anticipate situations, they can do less monitoring."

While an OptiCa$h system is not cheap -- with a one-time licensing fee ranging from $100,000 to several million dollars -- Holmgreen said users significantly reduce their cost of cash. Michael Scarlett, head of Currency Operating Services at Wachovia Corp., which was acquired by First Union last year, said his team expects currency levels within Wachovia to decrease by an additional 20 percent after all of its ATMs and branches begin using OptiCa$h later this year.

"I wish we could ask for a commission rather than a fixed price," Holmgreen joked.Holmgreen admits that he does not understand exactly how mathematics is used to predict cash levels in ATMs and branches based on historical activity. "The head of our Statistical Group has a degree from Leningrad University. When he gets done writing formulas on a white board during a meeting, I have to ask, 'Is that mathematics or is it Russian?'"

The important thing is that it works well enough to have attracted clients like Wachovia/First Union, Fifth Third Bank, Huntington Bank, First Citizens Bank, South Africa's ABSA Group, Australia's ANZ and the UK's Abbey National. This year, Transoft celebrated its 10th anniversary by being named to Deloitte & Touche's "Fast 50" list of the fastest-growing information technology companies in North Carolina.

Confident of his company's strengths, "the more the merrier," Holmgreen said of the competition.