ING announces change to senior leadership

Delvescovo has worked with ING since 2001 and has served as the bank’s national sales manager across its third-party distribution channel and strategic partnerships sector. He was appointed as ING’s head of lending operations in 2022 and began at ING in its retail business.

The new national sales manager, retail broker will report to George Thompson, ING’s newly appointed head of home loans.

Delevescovo takes over the role from Ray Esho, who has been the national manager for retail broker at ING for the past 11 years.

Esho will now lead the bank’s small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending sector as ING’s national sales manager for SME lending.

He fills the position left vacant by John Kolyvas, ING’s former national sales manager of commercial, who left the bank in 2023 after working with ING for eight years.

The appointments complete the reshuffle of the sales and distribution team that began following Glenn Gibson’s (the bank’s former head of sales and distribution) departure from ING in November 2023, when ING announced it was aligning its sales and distribution team with the rest of its mortgages team.

ING eyes ‘significant growth through the broker channel’

Thompson said the appointments were evidence of the bank’s aim to “drive significant growth through the broker channel”.

Speaking on Delvescovo’s appointment, Thompson said: “Sergio’s deep experience in understanding the end-to-end value chain of our mortgage business from his retail and operations roles means he is well placed to return to the broker channel, and drive growth in this area.”

Delvescovo said that he was excited to return to the retail broking channel with ING: “Having been in various roles at ING over 23 years, I’m excited to get back into the bank’s retail broker channel.

“This new role is a full-circle moment and I believe my career experience in understanding the operational aspect of lending and mortgages will prove beneficial to both my team, brokers, and mortgage borrowers.

“Ray leaves some big shoes to fill, having successfully led the team for more than a decade, but I am looking forward to the new challenge.”

Thompson said that Esho was “best placed” to head the bank’s SME channel: “Ray has spent more than 10 years successfully leading residential mortgage sales through the broker channel.

“He’s well established and respected throughout the industry and is best placed to help brokers with SME lending solutions.”

Esho said he was “excited” to step into this new role, which will see him continue with the broker industry.

He said he would be busy “expanding a different product offering to them and their SME customers”.

ING’s broker strategy

Speaking to The Adviser following his appointment earlier this year, Thompson said that ING would be building products, offerings, and services with brokers as its priority.

Noting that brokers write over 90 per cent of the bank’s business, he said that they were “the most critical source and important avenue of growth” for the bank.

Touching on the reshuffle of the leadership team at the time, he said the alignment of the ING sales and distribution and mortgages teams was made to “ensure that [ING] can be best placed to support brokers” and ensure that broker and BDM voices are heard.

Thompson said: “Everything that we do – and will be doing – is centred around how to make lives easier for our brokers.”

He said that the bank would now be working through its lending segments to see if there were any “under-represented” areas and that lending to support decarbonisation may be the next product available to borrowers from the bank.

[Related: Brokers ‘most critical source of growth’ for ING]