Wolfgang Strobel becomes Chief Transformation Officer of Anadi Bank

The banker with 20 years of top management experience joins Anadi Bank's Executive Board with immediate effect. Wolfgang Strobel is an early proponent of digital banking and a sought-after strategist for the digitalisation of processes and products. CEO Christian Kubitschek: "A sustainable reinforcement of our digital competence."

Klagenfurt, 18 October 2022 – The high level of investment that Anadi Bank plans to make over the next few years in the expansion of its digital roadmap is now also reflected in the organisation of the Management Board - subject to approval by the supervisory authorities: Wolfgang Strobel (53) will join the Management Board of Anadi Bank from 17 October 2022 in the newly created position of Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) and will thus play a leading role in shaping the transformation of Anadi Bank into a pure digital bank. Wolfgang Strobel had already been working for the bank as a strategic advisor for some time and played a key role in Anadi Bank's digital roadmap. Christian Kubitschek, CEO of Anadi Bank, is pleased about the strengthening of the management team and the future cooperation: „Anadi Bank is already excellently positioned for the challenging market environment and the great opportunities of digital banking. Wolfgang Strobel is a sustainable reinforcement of our clout and international future competence in digital banking. His expertise, his network and his hands-on mentality will contribute significantly to the success of our Strategy 3.0. With this strategy, we will roll out our digital roadmap from our headquarters in Klagenfurt, both in Austria and abroad.“.

Champion of the first hour in digitalisation

Wolfgang Strobel brings more than 20 years of international top management experience in banking and digital banking development. In the early 2000s, he was already an advocate of the consistent digitalisation of products and banking processes: Strobel was the initiator of a "mobile first" bank and chief strategist at banking groups such as HVB, UniCredit and DAB-Bank. Later, he became Chief Financial Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Operating Officer at FinTech Fidor Bank and at the private bank Hauck & Aufhäuser. Most recently, the German-born co-founder worked for CURE Finance, Germany's first digital finance provider for healthcare professionals. He was educated at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Harvard Business School, Cambridge/USA, and teaches at several universities in international MBA programmes on the digital transformation of companies.

Wolfgang Strobel has ambitious expectations in his new position: „Our customers can expect consistent digital integration from banks in the future. I call this 'no touch banking'. This means integrating customised banking services smoothly and digitally into our customers' financial processes at the right time. This requires a powerful process platform, a high level of implementation capability in the team and the competence to think in terms of our clients' networked value chains. A huge market is currently emerging in this area. Anadi Bank is in an excellent position to successfully participate in this growth“.

Massive investment in digital banking

Anadi Bank has invested steadily and massively in the development of its digital banking business in recent years. This is also visible in the fact that 40% of the bank's employees already work in the digital area (excluding the branch network). Anadi Bank has thus become a benchmark in digital banking in Austria, especially in its core products. The bank is setting new market standards, for example, in consumer loans, SME Anadi Bank's digital strengths also include the development of new products and services such as working capital loans - with market entry in Germany in 2021 - or tablet-based banking with the cooperation with Austrian financial service providers (Anadi Connect) and Austrian tobacconists under the MARIE brand. Traditional banking products such as current accounts, credit cards and modern payment methods are also among Anadi Bank's digital strengths.

About Anadi Bank

With its Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Public Finance and Digital Banking business segments, Anadi Bank offers personal customer care via a multi-channel approach with 10 branches in Carinthia and a team of customer care agents. In addition, Anadi Bank focuses on easy-to-use digital services and is developing its portfolio into a top online banking offering for the German-speaking region: most recently with the launch of a digital SME loan as part of the expansion into Germany, as well as with the launch of the tablet-based mobile sales cooperation with Austria's financial service providers under the "Anadi Connect" brand and the unique sales cooperation under the MARIE brand, which brings banking services to tobacconists. The digital DNA of the bank is visible in the bank's internal digital area, in which around 40% (excluding the branch network) of the total of around 250 Anadi Bank employees are already working. For the approximately 58,000 clients and as the principal bank of numerous companies in trade, industry and real estate, as well as a large number of municipalities and public institutions, the bank specifically uses the advantages of long-standing relationships of trust between clients and client advisors, high innovative strength, digital competence and lean structures.