ING Bank N.V. has announced that Consuelo D. Garcia will retire as Country manager and head of clients of ING’s Manila branch, effective November 16. Hans B. Sicat, former president and CEO of the Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE), has been appointed as her successor. He will join the bank mid-August to ensure a smooth transition and will assume both roles upon Garcia’s retirement.
Sicat headed the PSE for six years, until May 2017. He brings with him more than two decades of experience as an investment banker, having worked for Citigroup and its predecessor firms Citicorp and Salomon Brothers in the Philippines, Hong Kong and New York City.
A trained mathematician and economist, Sicat has been involved in the global capital market for about three decades. He has held various external positions, such as independent director of Serica Balanced Fund and Master Fund (a hedge fund), member of Euromoney Institutional Investor Asia advisory board; independent director of the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corporation; member of the board of trustee of Securities Investors Protection Fund; chairman of the emerging market working group of the World Federation of Exchanges; and executive in residence of the Asian Institute of Management.
Garcia has been ING Bank’s country manager and head of clients for almost nine years. She joined the Dutch financial institution in 1991 as head of Financial Markets, where she steered the bank to a dominant position in market making of Philippine global high yield and credit derivatives and as a top arranger for local debt capital markets. During her term as country manager, Garcia played a pivotal role in the divestment of the branch international private banking and asset-management businesses pursuant to the bank’s global strategy to focus on commercial and investment banking. She developed the Philippine business into an award-winning franchise, recognized consistently by other industry groups as the Top Fixed Income and Mergers and Acquisitions House.
Garcia is a staunch and passionate advocate of good governance and integrity initiatives.