IT Director Customer & Data

The organisation

Originally a Dutch bank, ING is now an international holding with business- and consumer banking operations within and outside Europe. Within both banking and IT, ING’s successful and large-scale agile transformations of the previous decade are considered exemplary. Since few industries develop as quickly as the intersection of banking and IT, new challenges keep coming up. For example, on the compliance side, regulations such as Know Your Customer (KYC) require new ways to deal with customer data. On the commercial side, advances in IT and data urge ING to explore new opportunities in client communication and marketing, among other things. Meanwhile, the IT organization is continually looking for tactical opportunities to integrate solutions with Group level applications. The Customer & Data IT organization of ING NL is at the forefront of these challenges. The organization is going through several large transformation programs to stay ahead of the game.

The position

The organization is currently split into five areas: KYC & Onboarding, Fraud & Analytics,  Data Management, Customer Data, and Document Management. KYC & Onboarding and Fraud are focused on compliance and protecting the bank and customers against illegal activities. Analytics help predict potential fraud and are also used for 1-on-1 offerings to customers. Data Management runs and guards the raw data that provides the foundation of many of ING NL’s IT and commercial activities, and a large consolidation program toward Group level is ongoing in this area. Customer Data is dealing with the systems that hold the data of millions of customers and are in need of (further) migration to newer technology. Finally, Document Management is focused on all digital and on-paper communication with customers, from letters to promotions to contracts. Aside from these five areas, a team of ~40 Technical Project Leaders run the PMO behind several transformation programs. The NL IT organization consists of 41 nationalities and is split between the Netherlands; the IT-centers in Romania and the Philippines; and external partners in India.

The IT Director Customer & Data will be the visionary leader to guide the organization through several transformation programs across these areas, while providing day-to-day leadership on business as usual. The IT Director Customer & Data will become part of the management team reporting to the CIO of ING NL.  Overall, the Director’s responsibilities will include translating and implementing the IT strategy in line with the bank’s strategy; creating and ensuring the engineering culture and one Agile Way of Working within the domain; and directly managing five IT Area Leads and a number of Technical Project Leaders.

This requires a good understanding of business challenges to design and develop solutions that drive innovation throughout the organization. The goal is to guarantee an excellent customer experience, while maintaining security, compliance and reliability. Good role modeling and being an ambassador for cultural change – and quickly building a solid understanding of the ING Agile culture – is also crucial in this role. This includes the constant stimulation of interaction and alignment within this part of the organization, and driving cross-cultural collaboration in an atmosphere where team members feel appreciated. Lastly, a deep understanding of the challenges that the engineers face is crucial to manage the areas in general and the Area Leads and Technical Project Leaders more specifically, helping them to continuously develop their capabilities.

“The management team is fairly young, highly pro-active and very supportive. The new IT Director Customer & Data will become part of a peer group with high dedication to the organization and eagerness to learn from one another.” – Edwin Entrop, Chief Information Officer at ING NL

The right candidate for this role has sufficient background in IT and engineering to hit the ground running and identify new opportunities for data and IT, while also understanding large transformations and bringing the capabilities to successfully guide these. They will take the lead in re-shaping the Customer & Data IT organization into one that is further digitized and more streamlined. This process will include re-shaping the organization’s culture, for which the IT Director Customer & Data brings the right mix of vision, leadership, decision-making and people skills.

Candidate profile*

• Over 12 years’ experience
• In IT and large transformations
• In banking, telco or e-commerce or other industry dealing with large numbers of realtime customer data
• Visionary leader
• Able to take operational leadership and drive results in an ambiguous environment

* Research shows that while male candidates feel confident enough to apply when they meet about 60% of the requirements, female candidates only apply when they tick every box. So if this role has your name on it, but you’re not sure about the criteria, we still want to hear from you.

Interested?

You are invited to apply for this position by following the link below.