With its “Think Forward” strategy, ING addresses significant changes impacting the banking industry; from changing customer expectations to FinTechs, regulatory requirements and digitalization. This ThinkForward strategy will turn ING into the Next Generation Digital Bank – a bank than can meet and exceed the changing needs of all its customers, employees, and regulators.
Transformation trends within the bank
The envisioned Next Generation Bank is truly customer-centric and highly innovative in terms of services and solutions, whilst adhering to stringent regulatory requirements, harnessing the full power of technology and optimizing the bank-wide operating model in terms of people, process, and systems. To enable the design and execution of the ThinkForward strategy, ING has setup a Global Transformation Office (GTO). Since joining ING in 2015, Head of GTO Dina Matta identifies that the challenge for ING isn’t so much becoming more customer-focused, but bundling and streamlining efforts and initiatives in order to increase the speed to volume, competitive advantage and focus on innovation:
“The biggest and most refreshing thing I have noticed since joining, is that ING is very entrepreneurial and customer-focused. However, this also means that ING is less developed in some areas, especially in terms of identifying and leveraging opportunities to standardise where it makes sense by using common processes and capabilities across the bank. There’s a need to balance the things that make the local banks disruptive and competitive in their markets and what strengthens the group from a global perspective.”
The Global Transformation Office
The GTO team works closely with the CEO, COO, ING Board, representatives from all relevant business units and functions under the COO and other stakeholders across the Bank. The focus is two-fold: firstly, the GTO provides coordination, auditing and optimization of the global change portfolio and manages ING’s strategic investment governance at a global level. Secondly, the GTO works with Corporate Strategy to develop and deploy strategic transformation programmes bank-wide, align new local and global initiatives with the existing change roadmap, and coordinate design and implementation across functions and countries as required.
Vacancy: Principal Global Transformation Office
The first challenge in this role is the simplification: developing an effective conceptual framework which enables ING to explore relevant operating model options and transformation levers. A case needs to be developed for organizational change. Therefore, the Principal will analyze available options and assess both internal and external data points. The second challenge will be navigating and influencing the existing organization matrix. The right balance needs to be determined between global strategy and local plans, and between existing change portfolios and new investments. The team is directly supporting the ING Board and needs to effectively manage senior stakeholders (Board members, CEOs, COOs, CIOs, Heads of value chains such as Payments, Mortgages or Savings) to generate consensus while orchestrating the required change. Ability to gain people’s commitment and achieve good cooperation between teams is crucial for this position. Principal GTO Radu Dimitrescu (who has a consulting background at PwC, Capgemini and Bearingpoint) describes the role as follows:
“This is an ideal position for someone who wants to move from a strategic consultancy into a line management position over time, gaining a 360 degree understanding of the Bank in a short period of time, whilst creating a strong network of senior stakeholders globally.”
Key responsibilities
- Critical participation in the design and execution of ING’s business strategy for 2017 and beyond
- The articulation, optimization and tracking of the implementation of the bank-wide operating model – leveraging the input of an extensive array of stakeholders
- Development of implementation scenarios and business cases for transformation and operating model changes
- Cross-functional coordination of functional transformation teams, from initial TOM design, to business case development and implementation planning
- Complex design, analysis and optimization of operating models for critical support functions (HR, Procurement, Finance, Risk, IT), working with colleagues from Enterprise Architecture, Process/Data Management, Sourcing and HR, and Finance
- Executive stakeholder management and alignment of local, global and functional transformation projects
- Supporting the development and deployment of ING’s COO strategy (Operations and IT).
Personality
- Born leader with a knack for coaching
- Results-driven
- Remains calm and confident in a fast-paced, ambiguous and high-pressure environment
- Gives and acts on constructive feedback
- Minimum 5 years at strategy consulting firm or the strategy practice of a management consulting firm
- Expertise in international Retail Banking
- Operating model design and implementation within Banking
- Designing/managing large operating model change programmes
- Leadership of project work streams including management of team members
- Strong strategic/conceptual thinking
- Analytical (quantitative / qualitative) approach
- Business acumen and problem solving skills
- Project management
- Communication and influencing skills at all levels, both internally and externally
- Understanding of current IT specific concepts and trends within the Financial Services industry