ING announced today that Pinar Abay will be appointed member of the Management Board Banking and head of Market Leaders, taking up the responsibility for ING’s operations in the Benelux. She will take up her new position per 1 January 2020.

Pinar Abay (Turkish, 1977) currently is country manager of ING in Turkey, a role she has held since joining ING in 2011. Before that Pinar was a partner at McKinsey & Company in Turkey, in charge of consultancy for the banking sector. She started at McKinsey in Istanbul in 1998 and also worked in San Francisco and New York. Since 2016 she has been a non-executive director of ING in Belgium. Pinar studied economics at Bilkent University in Turkey and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Ralph Hamers, CEO of ING said: “We are pleased to have Pinar as our new head of Market Leaders. Under her leadership ING in Turkey transformed into a successful digital, innovative organisation. Her in-depth knowledge of banking and her passionate customer and employee focus will be of great value in successfully driving forward the integration of our banking organisations in the Netherlands and Belgium.”

Pinar Abay’s appointment has been approved by the European Central Bank.