Domestic promotion is the most important task of the state-owned KfW. The new head of this area comes from the Dutch ING.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The state development bank KfW has found a candidate for one of its most important board positions: the board of directors is due to decide on Wednesday whether to hire Katharina Herrmann as head of domestic development business. A corresponding report in the “Platov letter” was confirmed in financial circles. KfW initially did not want to comment on this.
According to Handelsblatt information, Herrmann should initially join KfW as a general representative for twelve months and then move up to the board of the institute. The 53-year-old left her management position at the Dutch financial group ING last autumn and can therefore take up her position at KfW at short notice.
According to her LinkedIn profile, the business administration graduate, who studied at the Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences, began her banking career at Commerzbank as a marketing specialist before moving to ING-Diba in 1998 as Head of Marketing. She later managed the Austrian subsidiary of the direct bank for three years before becoming the private customer director of the German ING subsidiary in 2011.
Four years ago, she moved to the headquarters of the Dutch parent company as Global Head of Platforms and Beyond Banking, placing her directly below the board level.
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Herrmann succeeds Ingrid Hengster, who moved to British bank Barclays as head of Germany at the beginning of the year. The Austrian had been said to have ambitions for the top position at KfW, but the former investment banker Stefan Wintels won the race. After Hengster left, Wintels assumed responsibility for domestic production on an interim basis.
The Federal Government decides on the personal details of the KfW Executive Board
The fact that Herrmann can take up her post at KfW almost immediately means that the development bank, which is 80 percent owned by the federal government and 20 percent by the federal states, is able to close the gap in personnel on the board more quickly than expected: Hengster had his Farewell already announced last July. But personal details of the board of directors are ultimately decided by the federal government at the development bank. Therefore, the search for a successor could only be tackled after the formation of the government.
At KfW, Herrmann will take over something like the heart of the development bank with domestic promotion. They are then responsible for topics such as housing subsidies, corona aid, programs for municipalities and the participation of the state institute.
Herrmann joins KfW at a turbulent time: At the beginning of the year, the state bank’s housing subsidies made headlines because the government prematurely stopped a popular subsidy program for energy-efficient houses because an unexpected number of applications were submitted shortly before the program was scheduled to expire. In the meantime, the federal government has realigned housing subsidies.
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