EIB appoints Marjut Santoni as new Secretary General

The President after consulting the Members of the Management Committee of the European Investment Bank (EIB) has appointed Marjut Santoni as Secretary General of the Bank. 

Ms Santoni will start in her new role on 1 March 2018. A Finnish national, she began her career at Dresdner Bank before joining the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the European Commission in 1996. She held various roles in the field of SME and infrastructure financing until 2013 and was also advisor to the European Commission’s representatives on the Board of Directors of the European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, from 2001 until 2007. From 2013 to 2015, she was Deputy Chief Executive of the EIF, before being appointed to the position of Deputy Secretary General of the EIB in September 2015.

“I look forward to working closely with Marjut in her new position, knowing her as a highly reliable and efficient manager of the bank’s affairs. Marjut brings to the position extensive experience of finance and a profound knowledge of EU institutions and of the EU bank.”, said EIB President Werner Hoyer. He added, “Having now Marjut Santoni as the Secretary General at EIB and Maria Leander as the Secretary General at the European Investment Fund the EIB Group is proud to have two excellent and competent personalities that will help steer the EIB Group for the coming years.  In this context, I take the opportunity to emphasize that we will continue to promote women into top positions, following the recently updated EIB Strategy for Diversity and Inclusion.” 

“I thank the President and the Management Committee for the trust they put in me in the year of the 60th anniversary of this institution. Together we will modernise the EIB to prepare it for the challenges ahead,” Marjut Santoni commented.

She succeeds outgoing Secretary General Klaus Trömel, who joined the EIB in 1989 and has served as Secretary General from September 2015.  “I’m deeply grateful to Klaus for the outstanding work he has done for the EIB in what have been transformative years for the Bank”, President Hoyer said. “He led and helped shape all the key parts of the EIB, including Transaction Management and Restructuring, which he helped establish, Risk Management and the Operations directorate. This institution owes him a debt of gratitude. The Management Committee and I respect his wish to turn, after nearly 30 years at the EIB, to private life.”