Rein Graat

ING, Managing Director

General Counsel, Asia-Pacific

Rein practiced law at Simmons & Simmons in Amsterdam and London, before taking on different legal roles at ABN AMRO (e.g. General Counsel Netherlands), and moving to ING in 2008. At ING Rein has been in global legal, commercial, and strategy roles that took him from Amsterdam to London to Singapore.

The years of managing strategic planning, change management, innovation and sales have given Rein the ability to look at topics from a pro-active holistic perspective. It supported Rein to raise the profile of the Asia-Pacific legal function and make it a driving force for business, innovation and risk management growth regionally into globally.

Rein reconnected with his legal passion when becoming General Counsel Asia-Pacific in 2015. Legal APAC covers all regulatory, supervisory, litigation, transactional, data (protection), corporate (governance) and other issues of legal nature across the 14 countries ING is present in Asia-Pacific.

As General Counsel, Rein supports Legal to meet the ever-changing needs of internal, retail and wholesale customers as they adapt to the fast-changing regulatory, business and market environment in which they operate, enabling them to stay a step ahead.

Rein is motivated by digital transformation, leadership practices, sustainability and innovation to catalyze growth of businesses and diverse empowered multi-cultural teams; looking at the bigger picture and complex situations as an opportunity to create alpha.

In 2017 and 2018 ING Legal Asia-Pacific was respectively awarded with the ‘Standout’ and ‘Highly Commended’ recognition by the Financial Times as one of the most Innovative Legal Teams Asia Pacific (while the ‘Standout’ recognition Rein separately received as well in the category Innovative General Counsel Asia-Pacific 2017).

In June 2018 the Financial Times General Counsel Report profiled Rein as a global role model of the ‘Strategic Leader’ that reshapes the impact and image of in-house counsel.