With so many banks and wealth managers stressing their sustainability credentials, this appointment is a prominent one for DBS.

DBS has appointed former ING senior figure Helge Muenkel as chief sustainability officer, taking over from Mikkel Larsen.

Last November, Larson moved to his role as chief executive at Climate Impact X (CIX), a joint venture of DBS, SGX, Standard Chartered Bank and Temasek.

At ING, Muenkel worked for 10 years and was most recently head of Asia-Pacific, sustainable finance and global capital markets. He was also part of ING’s global sustainable finance and capital markets management teams and the bank’s global sustainable finance quality board. Prior to ING, he spent more than 12 years in various roles at Deutsche Bank and UniCredit Group based in cities across Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific.

Muenkel holds a master’s degree in economics from Munich University with a major in development economics. He also has a postgraduate degree in sustainability from Cambridge University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).