The Founders Bank project has appointed senior Deutsche Bank executive Kenan Altunis to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Altunis will lead a team comprised of senior executives with decades of global financial services experience across banking, asset management and corporate finance.
Once licensed, Founders Bank will be a corporate challenger bank servicing the tech industry, including blockchain and other emerging technologies.
In his last role, Altunis served as Global Co-Head of the Institutional Client Group within Deutsche Bank's Corporate and Investment Bank where he was responsible for a multi-billion-dollar revenue operation and a team of over 1000 people. He helped guide the bank's investment banking business, dealt directly with the world's largest institutional investors and regulatory bodies, and was a member of its Executive Committee, reporting directly to the Deputy CEO of the bank. Altunis will commence his appointment upon cessation of his Deutsche Bank commitments in early June 2019.
The Founders Bank project is developing a robust, enterprise-focused bank with the aim of redefining banking services. Altunis said, "I'm excited about this segue in my career from managing traditional banking to building a world-class corporate challenger bank. We will focus on servicing technology companies who find accessing and using existing financial services difficult and cumbersome. These will include companies in emerging technologies, such as blockchain and crypto."
Altunis will lead a multi-skilled team of senior executives unique in the industry. The group has decades of global financial services experience across banking, asset management and corporate finance at leading firms such as Deutsche Bank, Barclays, HSBC, Citibank, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Canada, Brevan Howard, KPMG, Mastercard, Amazon, Paypal and Bitpesa.
"As one of the lead investors of the Founders Bank project, we are committed to developing the ecosystem and supporting infrastructure cornerstones to facilitate growth across the broader industry," said Changpeng Zhao ('CZ'), CEO of Binance.