ING promotes execs to bolster multicultural outreach

ING today stepped up its multicultural outreach efforts by hiring a slate of new executives hailing from Latin America. The company today named Andres Vargas Escobar, vice president of multicultural sales operations; Juan Pablo Troncoso Philippi, manager of sales support; Nydia Monarrez Lozano, manager of sales support; and Erika Contreras Escobar, a business coordinator. Previously, Mr. Escobar was the national manager of voluntary pensions at ING Pensions and Severance in Bogota, Colombia, and Ms. Lozano was a senior commercial sales executive at ING Mexico's pensions division. Mr. Philippi was the head of product management at ING Chile SA, and Ms. Escobar was the retirement account administrator at ING Mexico. The sales team will provide marketing and sales assistance along with in-language and in-culture financial education programs. It will also provide local support to distribution partners, advisers and plan sponsors. Mr. Escobar and Ms. Escobar, who are not related, will be based in Windsor, Conn. Meanwhile, Mr. Philippi will work out of Irvine, Calif. Ms. Lozano will be based in Tampa, Fla. “It's apparent to us that we need to have leaders in the sales and marketing areas that come from those backgrounds to help the organization provide an overarching multicultural experience to advisers and clients from those cultures,” said X. Rick Nu, chief marketing officer of ING U.S. retirement services. He also noted that the growing population of wealthy Hispanics — especially the number of small-business owners — is stimulating a demand for advisers of similar lineage. ING has recruited more than 1,200 advisers for its multicultural program over the course of the last two years. “We're trying to provide a service,” Mr. Nu added. “The multicultural sales force has been a big driver in the last several years. We see that trend continuing, and we need more bandwidth to support the multilingual advisers we do business with.”