Find out more about our new CRO and what makes him tick.
You’ve had a long career in banking and risk management. What attracted you to ING?
Honestly, timing and fit. ING is global, digital, and big enough that what you do actually moves the needle. And then the culture - open, collaborative, and inclusive. It’s also one of the few places where risk is genuinely part of the strategy, with a real seat at the table, helping to reinforce the right decisions and challenge the wrong ones. For me, that combination - impact and influence - was pretty hard to say no to.
What qualities and experience do you bring to the role?
I’ve spent most of my career at the intersection of risk, capital and strategy- and increasingly trying to connect the dots between them. I’m also a bit of a hybrid: part quant, part business, part “let’s just make a decision and move on.” Which is useful…because in this environment perfection is usually too late.
What’s your leadership style?
I’m quite hands-on… probably too hands-on sometimes. I like to stay close to what’s actually going on. But I’ve learned the hard way that if everything needs to go through you, you become the bottleneck. So the goal is: stay involved, but build teams that don’t need you for every decision. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to trust - without it, you get defensive behaviour and bad decisions…and usually a lot more emails than anyone needs.
As an experienced risk manager, what do you see as the main risks for an organisation like ING?
The short answer: things are getting more connected and more unpredictable. Cyber and operational resilience risks are becoming very real, very fast. Macro and geopolitics are driving tail risks again. And internally, we’re also managing a lot at once - constant change plus multiple big initiatives. That naturally increases execution risk. The tricky part is not the individual risks, it’s how they interact when things go wrong and dealing with them quickly and effectively.
Operating in a complex and volatile environment seems to be the ‘new normal’. How do we stay ahead?
We don’t 'stay ahead' by predicting everything- that’s a fantasy. We stay ahead by: (i) thinking more in scenarios than forecasts; (ii) connecting risks earlier; and (iii) making decisions faster when uncertainty hits. And one other thing I’ve learned: when things get messy, culture beats any policy or process.
What excites you and gets you out of bed each day?
Coffee helps. A lot. But beyond that - this is one of those jobs where what you do actually matters. You’re constantly dealing with new problems, high stakes, incomplete information… and still expected to make good decisions. It can be frustrating some days and exciting on other days. It’s never boring!