Deutsche Bank recently has appointed a number of digital natives into top jobs – and they all are excellent bloggers. The latest addition is a St. Gallen-trained banker who is known for his podcasts.
Stefan Hoops (pictured below) is one of the «Top 40 Under 40» in Germany, and his boss Christian Sewing is full of his praise. In the latest reshuffle he was appointed head of the global corporate banking business, at 39 the digital expert became one of only few to take a step up.
«Sewing’s last joker» («Der Spiegel») is now assembling a group of like-minded bankers with a strong expertise in all things fintech and – as «finanz-szene.de» suggested – a sound background in blogging.
Fintech Expertise
One of them is called André Bajorat, Hoops’ new head of strategy, who used to work at fintech Figo. Or the new head of product, Rafael Otero, previously at payment startup Payleven, or Jochen Siegert from Traxpay, who is responsible for platforms. Add to that Kilian Thalhammer (ex-Wirecard) and Alexander Bechtel, an expert in digital currencies.
Bechtel made himself a name in the fintech industry with his «Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll» series of podcasts, which he has been producing for the past year. He also is a research assistant and PhD student at University of St. Gallen. His experience in banking seems to stem from a mandate for the European Central Bank (ECB) and a stint at Eurex, the multi-national stock exchange.
Corona-Boost
In Bechtel, Hoops has found the strategist he wanted. The head of the new corporate bank, which is at the heart of Deutsche’s operations with a business volume of 1 trillion euros, feels vindicated by the corona-crisis.
«Some trends will clearly accelerate, everything that has to do with digitization, online payments or the e-commerce support,» Hoops told «Handelsblatt». Others are a little more skeptical. «It’s pretty courageous (and a little crazy) what Hoops is doing,» said «finanz-szene.de».
