Geert Van Mol is Chief Digital Officer and board member at Belfius – Bank and insurer used by 30% of Belgian citizens. He has held this position for 4 years and joined the Management Board last year.

Belfius is the pioneer in mobile banking in Belgium. Their mobile application has been recognised for its cutting-edge functionality and user experience. Since the banking crisis of 2008 the Bank’s leadership was faced with the dilemma of rethinking their values and regaining trust of their customers, which led to the company culture focused on passion, emotion, empathy and cooperation.

In this episode of Leadership Deep Dive, Geert Van Mol talks with Hendrik Deckers about obsession with great user experience design, the possible future of digital banking, gradually building the position of Belfius on the difficult job market, choosing between hard skills and cultural fit, and the many surprising lessons he learned through coaching.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:48 – Introduction
01:30 – Belfius Mobile banking platform
12:40 – How do you see mobile banking evolving in the next 5-10 years?
17:50 – Owning financial data and becoming a bank – case of Facebook and Google
19:40 – Digital car insurance app by Belfius
21:43 – How Digital and IT are organised at Belfius
26:12 – Attracting IT & digital talent
30:55 – Geert’s management style
32:35 – From user experience design to emotion design
33:13 – Geert’s MBTI profile
38:00 – Geert’s plan for the next few years at Belfius
40:10 – Geert’s morning ritual and work-life balance
41:50 – The parallels between digital innovation and music
43:20 – What values do you want to pass on to your kids?
47:02 – Geert’s personal mantra
48:10 – Geert’s mentors and mentoring goals
51:28 – Advice for future digital leaders
54:38 – The importance of building ecosystems and joining forces locally