ING Hires Lynne Ford as CEO of ING Financial Solutions
PRNewswire
NEW YORK
Dec 16, 2009
ING announced today that it has hired Lynne Ford as the CEO of ING Financial Solutions, the company's transformed annuity and rollover business that will offer simpler, lower-cost annuity and non-annuity products to retiring baby boomers and the rollover market. Ford currently serves as executive vice president and managing director of the Retail Retirement Group at Wells Fargo. She will report to Rob Leary, CEO of ING Insurance U.S.(1) Bill Lowe will continue as interim CEO until mid-January, and he will lead the marketing, sales and an expanded distribution function within the business.
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"Lynne's strong experience in the annuity and IRA arena and her strategic leadership of Wells Fargo's retirement initiative makes her an ideal candidate to lead ING Financial Solutions," said Leary. "As we undertake this new direction in the retirement solutions market, Lynne brings a fresh perspective to our strong expertise and position in the retirement and annuity marketplaces. Her innovative, customer-oriented approach and her retail background will be an asset to ING."
Ford has spent a majority of her professional career at Wachovia, which merged with Wells Fargo in late 2008, serving in a number of executive capacities within its investment and distribution organizations. In her recent role, Ford was responsible for the annuity and IRA products distributed across the company. This included the sales, marketing and product management for IRAs and annuities, as well as channel management, annuity operations and servicing. She was also responsible for the company's overall Retail Retirement strategy and branding as the company aimed to capitalize on the retirement market opportunity. In 2008, the business had annualized IRA sales of more than $30 billion and was the largest distributor of annuities in the U.S. with over $15 billion in total sales.
Prior to that role, Ford also served as senior vice president and director of sales initiatives for Evergreen Investments from 1997-2003, and a variety of sales capacities including national sales manager within Evergreen Investments from 1993-1997.
"I'm excited to be joining ING, which has a tremendous reputation for innovative retirement income products and strong distribution capabilities," said Ford. "We're at a historical junction in terms of retirement in America. The next decade will bring an unprecedented wave of new retirees, and with it will come a flood of new products and approaches to the market. Financial services companies that can truly innovate and provide a customer-oriented approach will be the ones that thrive in this new environment," she added.
Ford earned a bachelor's degree from Davidson College and a master's degree from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She serves as the treasurer of the Insured Retirement Institute based in Washington, D.C. She also serves as a director of Catawba Land Conservancy and Carolina Thread Trail, as well as the Girl Scouts Hornet's Nest Council, all non-profit organizations based in Charlotte, N.C.
(1) Effective January 1, 2010. About ING
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services to over 85 million private, corporate and institutional clients in more than 40 countries. With a diverse workforce of about 110,000 people, ING is dedicated to setting the standard in helping our clients manage their financial future.
In the U.S., the ING (NYSE: ING) family of companies offer a comprehensive array of financial services to retail and institutional clients, which includes life insurance, retirement plans, mutual funds, managed accounts, alternative investments, direct banking, institutional investment management, annuities, employee benefits, financial planning, and reinsurance. ING holds top-tier rankings in key U.S. markets and serves approximately 30 million customers across the nation. For more information, visit www.ing.com/us.
Press inquiries: Philip Margolis ING (860) 580-2676 phil.margolis@us.ing.com Important legal information
Certain of the statements contained herein are statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, among other things, (i) general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING's core markets, (ii) performance of financial markets, including developing markets, (iii) the implementation of ING's restructuring plan to separate banking and insurance operations, (iv) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity, such as interbank funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (v) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (vi) mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (vii) persistency levels, (viii) interest rate levels, (ix) currency exchange rates, (x) general competitive factors, (xi) changes in laws and regulations, (xii) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, (xiii) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, (xiv) changes in ownership could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital loss and built-in loss carryforwards, and (xv) ING's ability to achieve projected operational synergies. ING assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this document.
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SOURCE: ING
CONTACT: Philip Margolis, ING, +1-860-580-2676,
phil.margolis@us.ing.com
Web Site: http://www.ing.com/us