BBVA appointed a new CEO this week, hiring Onur Genç (pictured below) to take the place of Carlos Torres Vila who served as BBVA Group CEO since May of 2015. Torres Vila’s tenure at BBVA extends back 10 years, beginning in 2008 when he first worked as the Group’s head of strategy and corporate development. He will transition as BBVA’s Chairman after stepping down from his role as CEO.

Genç will be coming to the company from Birmingham, Alabama-based BBVA Compass where he was CEO and U.S. country manager. He will begin his new role on December 31, 2018.

“Onur has had an extremely positive impact in our operations in the U.S. and in Turkey, and now that contribution will be extended to the whole Group,” Torres Vila said. “The Board has selected Onur as he is the ideal CEO to continue pushing forward our strategy and boosting our transformation throughout all our franchises, generating value for all our stakeholders: shareholders, employees, customers and the overall society.”

Previous to his role at BBVA Compass, Genç worked for Garanti Payment Systems for six years– first as EVP of retail banking and then as deputy CEO.

BBVA demoed its market sentiment analysis tool at Finovate Europe 2013 in London and presented its initial APIs to an audience of developers at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. Earlier this month, the bank launched a new venture called Upturn that aims to simplify the credit report error dispute process.