CorpComms Magazine

Putting Wholesale Banking ING the limelightAndy Muncer can be forgiven if at 4 am on Monday he snuggles just that little bit more under the duvet and enjoys another few hours' sleep, because it's not that long ago that the global head of corporate communications for ING Wholesale Banking used to rise at that ungodly hour to travel from his Brighton home to the company's Amsterdam headquarters for an 8.30 am meeting.

But in August, after two and a half years of commuting, Muncer, 37, moved his wife and four children to the Dutch capital. 'I was wiped out by the weekend,' he recalls. 'We'd go out with friends; they'd be talking to me and I'd be fast asleep.'

Today Muncer lives a ten-minute cycle ride from ING's modern headquarters, which locals liken to a dust-buster. 'My work/life balance is much better here. It is seen as positive to take your children to school once a week or so; I could never do that in London.'

His office is two floors below the head office of ING Group, which means that he is also at the heart of the business. And, even though everybody speaks English 'to a higher standard

than most English people', Muncer is learning Dutch - but a handful of lessons on, he worries he'll never be fluent.

Best-kept secret

Wholesale Banking offers services to ING's corporate clients that range from cash management solutions to complicated acquisition financing. Muncer joined in 2000 when the company

was known as ING Barings.

'Wholesale Banking contributes 22 percent of the group's profits, but it is the story that no one seems to know, anything about,' concedes Muncer. 'We are not seen as sexy and exciting.'

Muncer joined ING Barings six years ago - from his previous role as head of corporate communications at the London Stock Exchange - when it had global ambitions and wanted to

compete with US firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

A year later there was a dramatic rethink. The strategy was scaled back. The executive team quit. Some activities were integrated into other business units, while others were closed or sold. 'I just carried on doing my job, and after 9/11 I was seconded to ING Group for six months to provide maternity cover,' Muncer says.

Muncer's work attracted the attention of Eric Boyer de la Giroday, who is now a main board member. He recruited Muncer to work at the newly created ING Wholesale Banking, which brought together elements of both the investment and commercial banks.

'ING had acquired lots of different banks, like Belgium's BBL, which were all branded differently and acted independently from each other. My first task was to bring the different communications

strands together,' explains Muncer. He had to work with existing teams, coaxing some members to change their mindset, as well as bringing in external talent to fill gaps in the pool. 'I have been able to build a network of people, but it can be very hard to come into a business unit with an existing team when you have previously been used to being able to hand-pick staff,' he says.

'The biggest challenge was getting the team to pull together, and all going in the same direction,' Muncer continues. 'I involve my teams in all the key decisions, which are consensus-driven. They all like to feel that they have a voice and that I am not being heavy-handed about things.'

Meeting of minds

Muncer holds regular meetings for all the regional teams, at which they share their experiences. 'Often people say something that triggers an idea from someone else. It is a way of piggy-backing together.'

Muncer says that he admires UBS, the Swiss-owned bank that has successfully brought together many different organisations under one brand. 'The bank has really benefited from its centralised

organisation,' he says.

When he introduced new branding into ING Wholesale Banking, Muncer brought his team together to discuss the different ways that they used the company's identity. 'We learned that

some people used it even better than we did in the head office, so we updated our processes,' he admits.

Such a collegiate approach probably meant that the new branding was accepted into the organisation faster than it would otherwise have been. Muncer reinforced the branding, and the corporate message, with the launch of a staff magazine. Shortly after the first edition, the annual employee survey revealed that 30 percent of staff saw the magazine as a prime source of information about the bank. One year on, and the number had risen to 50 percent.

'It has had a huge impact,' Muncer says. 'It is a great reference tool for the staff, and a way for management to talk to them through a different product.'

In his 15-year career, which began with a spell as a parliamentary lobbyist and a role at the Independent Schools Information Service, where he worked with two former journalists, Muncer has seen changes in the way that management interact with staff.

'When I was at the London Stock Exchange, it was a 24/7 role with responsibility for press, advertising, branding and employee communications,' recalls Muncer. 'The only thing the chief

executive cared about was the press, however. Today that has changed - CEOs care about much more than that. Employee engagement is becoming incredibly important to them, particularly after various studies have been published that show there is a huge impact on the bottom line when staff are kept informed and updated.'

'There is a lot going on for ING Group at the moment,' adds Muncer enthusiastically. 'It is a relatively unknown brand but a huge financial services provider. For example, ING Direct has just set up in Chicago. It's a global brand with a lot of growth potential.' Recently, the Dutch bank signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Renault Formula One. 'It is a very exciting time for ING. Over the next two to three years, it is going to become even better known.'

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