Business 13 September 2018, 4:42pm

Erste announces successor of outgoing CEO Treichl

Portfolio

Erste Group Bank AG CEO Andreas Treichl is stepping down as of January 2020. The Austrian banking group has revealed on Thursday that he will be succeeded by Bernhard Spalt, currently Chief Risk Officer of Erste Bank Austria and formerly member of the management board in Hungary.

Andreas Treichl will be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer of Erste Group at the end of 2019, ahead of the end of his mandate in June 2020. The Supervisory Board has on Thursday appointed Bernhard Spalt (pictured), currently Chief Risk Officer of Erste Bank Austria, to succeed him.

Bernhard Spalt will step down from all his other mandates before becoming Erste Group’s Deputy CEO to Andreas Treichl, which is expected mid-2019.

Bernhard Spalt’s career

Bernhard Spalt (50) has built his entire career within Erste Group, having joined in 1991 straight out of university. He has held multiple board-level positions in Central and Eastern Europe and at holding company level, spearheading several strategic repositioning undertakings.

He was member of the management board and CRO in Romania (2017), Slovakia (2015-16) and Hungary (2012-15). He had previously also served as CRO of Erste Group (2006-12), having managed the establishment of the group’s Strategic Risk Management division. Prior to that he was the driving force behind bad loan management in the Czech Republic and thus played a key role in the successful turnaround of Ceska sporitelna (1999-2002).
Bernhard currently serves as Chief Risk Officer at Erste Group’s Austrian subsidiary Erste Bank Oesterreich.

He earned a master’s degree in Law from the University of Vienna in 1992.

I’m convinced that Bernhard Spalt is exactly the right person to chart the bank’s path going forward

, said Andreas Treichl.

Treichl has been member of Erste Group’s Board of Directors since October 1994. He was appointed CEO in July 1997, which most likely makes him the longest serving bank chiefs in Europe after Sándor Csányi of Hungary’s OTP Bank. Following his tenure as CEO, Andreas Treichl will become Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Erste Foundation, Erste Group’s largest shareholder, from 2020.

“In his 27 years at Erste, Bernhard Spalt has acquired broad frontline experience across banking businesses in CEE, both in good and bad times," added Chairman of the Erste Group Supervisory Board Friedrich Roedler who led the selection process to identify Treichl’s successor.