ING Groep N.V. announced that Ljiljana Cortan will be appointed head of ING Wholesale Banking, effective February 24, 2026. She is succeeding Andrew Bester, who, as announced last October, is returning to the UK to start the non-executive phase of his career. Having completed the handover of the Wholesale Banking activities, Andrew Bester will step down from the Management Board Banking on February 24, 2026.
As of February 24, 2026, Ljiljana Cortan will leave her position as chief risk officer (CRO), which she assumed in 2021. The selection process for a new CRO is underway. Until the appointment of a successor, Ljiljana will remain a member of the Executive Board, with ING?s chief financial officer temporarily assuming responsibility for risk on the Executive Board.
The day-to-day risk management activities until a CRO is appointed will be performed by Andrea Cesaroni, currently head of Integrated Risk, who will, in the ad interim role of head of risk, report to the CFO. Andrea has over 25 years of experience in financial services and risk management. He joined ING in July 2022 and was appointed to his current role, responsible for risk management policies, frameworks and governance, including ESG risk, risk modelling and capital adequacy assessment.
He joined ING from UniCredit, where among other roles he was head of Group Financial Risk and later he was head of Group Risk Models & Credit Risk Governance. Before joining UniCredit he was a consultant at Deloitte and Arthur Andersen. The appointment of Ljiljana Cortan as head of Wholesale Banking has been approved by the European Central Bank.
