ING chief innovation officer and CEO of ING Ventures, Benoît Legrand is to quit the Dutch lender in March next year after being sidelined in a recent shakeup of the bank's innovation unit.
In October, ING announced plans to combine all of its disparate innovation programmes into a single dedicated unit, ING Neo, reporting directly to new chief executive officer Steven van Rijswijk.
The new division is to be headed by Annerie Vreugdenhil, the bank's current head of wholesale banking innovation. At the time, ING said that Legrand would be "reassigned" to a new undefined role.
Prior to the overhaul, Legrand, a 27-year veteran at ING, had spent a five-year stint running the bank's chief innovation office and the WB innovation office. He was also the founding architect of ING's €300 million venture fund, which holds more than 30 investments, was named most active fintech corporate venture capital in Europe in research by Atomico and Dealroom.co, and includes successful fintechs like WeLab, Fintonic and Cobase.
In a LinkedIn post announcing his departure, Legrand says: "When looking back, I can easily say that I have not a single regret about having stayed and committed to ING all along this time. Not a single. Yet, today Life is whispering to me that it is probably time to find a new balance"
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