Pinar Abay appointed as first woman to lead ING Belgium’s Board of Directors
Thursday 12th of May 2022 - Brussels - Pinar Abay has been appointed Chair of the ING Belgium Board of Directors. She succeeds Diego du Monceau, who has reached the age limit for the Board of which he has been a member since 1993 and Chair since 2020. As such, Abay is the first woman to lead the Board in the bank’s 150-year history. At the same time, the Board also welcomes Hilde Laga as non-executive director, thus strengthening the gender balance within the Board which has more than 50% women.
“I am proud to become the Chair of the ING Belgium board which has members with very diverse backgrounds, more than half of them female. Especially the arrival of Hilde Laga brings in a lot of board experience and it confirms our commitment ensuring gender balance and diversity of experience on our Board. With this appointment 7 out of 9 non-executive members are female. It’s an important achievement in walking the talk when it comes to making boards of directors in Belgium in general more diverse and inclusive. On behalf of ING, I want to thank Diego sincerely for his almost 30 years of strong commitment to ING Belgium’s Board of Directors. His national and international experience and network were of great benefit to us over the past years while Diego contributed strongly to the strengthening of the governance and diversity of ING Belgium’s Board of Directors.”
Pinar Abay - Chair of the Board of Directors ING Belgium
Pinar Abay was first appointed as non-executive member of the board of ING Belgium in July 2016. Since January 2020 she is member of the Management Board Banking of ING and Head of Market Leaders, being responsible for Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Previously she was CEO of ING in Turkey. Before joining ING in 2011, Pinar Abay worked at McKinsey & Company in Istanbul, San Francisco and New York, serving international banking clients.
Hilde Laga joins the Board of Directors as non-executive member. She currently is Chair of the Board of Directors of the GIMV and a board member of Barco and Greenyard. She is a visiting professor at the law faculty of the KU Leuven as well as a member of the Belgian Corporate Governance Commission. She is the founder of the law firm Laga, where she was managing partner for years, as well as head of the corporate and M&A department.
“I am delighted to bring my board experience to this bank that for already 150 years has been helping clients making their dreams come true. It’s also an enrichment to be part of a very diverse Board of Directors. I intend to build further on the implementation of the new strategy “banking made simple” and bringing added value to our customers.”
Hilde Laga - independent non-executive member ING Belgium
The Board of Directors of ING Belgium counts nine women and eight men, all with diverse international expertise. In line with this ambition, two new members have recently joined the Board, Ronald Oort as non-executive member. He has been chief risk officer of ING in Spain and Portugal since August 2018 and has been with ING for over 25 years, working in various roles in the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil and Romania. Another new member is Peter Göbel who is Head of Business Banking of ING Belgium and member of the Executive Committee as of April 2022. Previously he was head of Business Banking Sales at ING Belgium. He joined ING in 2007 as head of Real Estate Finance for the Netherlands and Poland.
View full details of ING Belgium’s Board of Directors.