To continue support the Bank’s Strategy and execution excellence - Rūta Ežerskienė expected to join the Management Board being responsible for the Retail business, Vladislavs Mironovs will focus on Strategy execution, Digital evolution and Business development, Valters Ābele will take CFO role and Slavomir Mizak will run merged IT and Operations organization.

To ensure continued progress with our private and SME clients, Citadele is very pleased to introduce Rūta Ežerskienė to take on the Retail business from January 2021 and join the Management Board. Rūta has a broad and deep understanding of private and SME client business with experience from both banking and insurance industry. Rūta most recently was Head of Baltic Retail for AON insurance company since 2018. Before that she held different management positions in SEB, both on Baltic level and in Lithuania, including Head of Sales Department and Business transformation (years 2017-2018) and CEO in SEB Life Insurance (years 2015-2017). “I am happy and proud to join Citadele. By transforming its products and services with new technologies and innovations, Citadele is going hand in hand with changing customers' needs in different stages of their lifecycle. I see big potential to be the primary financial partner in the Baltics for Private and Business customers to make their lives easier and wealthier, providing excellent service together with the team of great professionals at Citadele,” says Rūta Ežerskienė.

“The bank is in a position of strength and during the last years we have made good progress and we also have many exciting things to look forward to. In our pursuit to become real Baltic Banking Champion we now take the next step towards our aspiration to have the best team for the goal. I am very excited about Rūta joining us, and look forward to getting even more drive, sales and personal touch into retail clients and looking forward to a new strong voice in the management team,” says Johan Akerblom, Citadele CEO.

Customer behaviour, technology and market dynamics change more rapidly than ever and for Citadele to continue its successful journey we need to be even more focused on our development and customers. In the light of this Citadele will put bigger emphasis on strategy and business development for private, SME and corporate customers, while being able to consolidate the set-up covering the support functions. In line with this ambition, Vladislavs Mironovs, Member of the Management Board and existing Chief Commercial Officer Retail, will fully focus on strategy execution, digital evolution and business development.

Having a background from external audit, supplemented by a long history with the bank and the shareholders, Valters Ābele, Member of the Management Board and CRO, will take Chief Financial Officer role and continue focusing on the ECB onboarding.

Finally, the Chief Operations Officer role, currently managed by Kaspars Jansons, will become part of merged IT and Operations organization run by Slavomir Mizak, Member of the Management Board and Chief Technology Officer, and will seize to exit as a separate role. Kaspars will remain in Citadele working with the shareholders.

The upcoming changes in Citadele’s Management Board will be presented for the confirmation to the Financial and Capital Market Commission and effective as of January 2021 subject to FCMC approval.

About Citadele Bank

Citadele’s mission is to modernise the banking sector and offer more opportunities to clients and businesses throughout the Baltics.

Alongside classic banking services, Citadele offers its clients a range of services based on next-generation financial technology, including its modern app, contactless payments and instant payments, and finally, being the first in the Baltics to introduce opening an account with a selfie, payment rings and payments to mobile numbers.

Citadele is the second largest bank in Latvia by assets. The Citadele group is managed from Latvia. Its subsidiaries and branches operate in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

         Kristīne Mennika
         Head of Corporate Communications
         Phone: +371 26528533
         Email: Kristine.Mennika@citadele.lv
         
         Ilona Frīdmane
         Head of Investor Relations
         Phone: +371 29483327
         Email: IR@citadele.lv
         
         Mihails Goļevs
         Head of Financial Institutions Division
         Phone: +371 26196685
         Email: IR@citadele.lv