David Suetens

Independent Director at Bridge Building

Speaker

David is an independent director in financial services. He has currently three mandates: one with a material German banking entity supervised by the ECB whereby he chairs their risk committee; secondly he chairs an Irish Financial Services Company. Finally, he chairs the Board of a FinTech in the wealth management space offering also a specific ESG module. He’s also a senior advisor to Avantage Reply’s Risk practice.

Before his career as an independent director he was the CEO for State Street Bank Luxembourg and its affiliates. Earlier in his career, Mr. Suetens was International Chief Risk Officer for State Street Corporation with responsibility for leading the company’s risk management function internationally and with different asset managers. Throughout his career he engaged closely with the sustainable finance topic from a risk perspective and also from a business opportunity perspective. Since January 2021 he has been appointed as a member of the Lux Flag eligibility committees related to ESG and Climate Change, this committee is issuing independently ESG labels to different investment funds across Europe. Mr.Suetens is a certified Chapter Zero qualified director (World Economic Forum-initiative), a climate journey course for independent board members across various industries. In 2023 Mr.Suetens is scheduled to be a lecturer at HEC Liege teaching the course ‘Cases in Sustainable Finance’ to their Master’s program.

He is a frequent writer, thought-leader and presenter on newer topics affecting the industry including operational resilience, the cohabitation between FinTech/Banks, outsourcing and sustainable finance.