Onur Genç

Overview

Onur Genç
Born	1974 (age 51–52) Trabzon, Turkey
Citizenship	Turkey
Education	BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering; MS in Industrial Administration
Alma mater	Boğaziçi University; Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
Occupation(s)	Banker, business executive
Employer	Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA)
Known for	Chief executive officer of BBVA; digital transformation and international expansion strategy; first Turkish-born chief executive of a major Spanish bank
Title	Chief executive officer
Term	2018–present
Predecessor	Carlos Torres Vila
Board member of	BBVA; Garanti BBVA; BBVA México and other BBVA group companies
Children	2
Awards	Henry Ford II Scholar Award; Spanish–Turkish Chamber of Commerce Award

🏦 Onur Genç (born 1974) is a Turkish banker and business executive who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) since December 2018, after earlier leadership roles at Turkey’s Garanti Bank and BBVA’s United States franchise. He is known for emphasizing digital transformation, data-driven management and a geographically diversified strategy focused on Spain, Mexico and Turkey, and under his leadership BBVA has reported record profits while exiting its U.S. retail business and increasing its stake in Turkish lender Garanti BBVA. He is also regarded as the first Turkish-born executive to lead a major Western banking group headquartered in Spain.

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Early life and education

🎓 Early years and studies. Genç was born in 1974 in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, Turkey, and grew up in a middle-class family where academic achievement was strongly encouraged. He excelled at school and achieved a fifth-place ranking nationwide in Turkey’s university entrance examination, a test taken by roughly 1.2 million students a year. This result enabled him to enter Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, where he studied electrical and electronics engineering and graduated in 1995 with the highest grade point average in his class, reflecting an early aptitude for quantitative problem-solving.

🌍 Graduate training in the United States. Seeking to broaden his education beyond engineering, Genç moved to the United States at the age of 21 to pursue graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. There he completed a Master of Science in Industrial Administration (MBA) in 1997, graduating with a perfect 4.0 GPA and receiving the Henry Ford II Scholar Award for outstanding academic performance. He has described Tepper’s “analytical approach to solving business problems” as particularly influential, noting that it complemented his engineering background and helped shape the data-driven style he later applied in banking leadership roles. During his time in the United States he also developed a long-standing interest in American football, becoming an enthusiastic supporter of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team he has continued to follow closely despite time-zone differences later in his career.

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Early career

💼 Initial corporate experience. After completing his MBA, Genç began his professional career in corporate finance, working briefly as a financial analyst at American Airlines in the late 1990s. The role exposed him to financial planning and large-scale operational decision-making in a complex, capital-intensive industry, providing an early understanding of how analytical tools are used to manage risk and performance in real-world settings.

🌐 Consulting at McKinsey & Company. In 1999 Genç joined the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he spent the next 13 years focusing primarily on financial institutions. Over this period he worked on banking engagements in more than ten countries, including assignments in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Turkey, which broadened his exposure to different regulatory regimes and retail-banking models. He rose rapidly through the firm’s hierarchy and was elected senior partner and managing partner of McKinsey’s Istanbul office at the age of 34, a promotion that placed him at the head of the firm’s Turkish operations during a period of significant growth in the country’s banking sector.

🔁 Leadership philosophy formed in consulting. Genç has credited his time at McKinsey with shaping his views on leadership, particularly the importance of entrepreneurship, empowerment and accountability as guiding principles for senior managers. Working with diverse teams of colleagues and clients, he has said, taught him that effective leaders create space for others to take initiative while maintaining clear responsibility for outcomes, an approach he later carried into executive roles in Turkey, the United States and Spain. After more than a decade advising banks, he decided to leave consulting for an operating position, reasoning that he wanted to apply ideas directly rather than remain in an advisory capacity.

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Transition to banking

🏛️ Move to Garanti Bank. In 2012 Genç joined Garanti Bank, then one of Turkey’s largest private banks, as an executive vice president overseeing retail and private banking. The move marked a significant career shift from consulting into line management, placing him directly in charge of product distribution, branch productivity and customer acquisition in a highly competitive market. Under his leadership Garanti increased its market share in key retail products beyond what would have been expected from its branch footprint alone, reflecting gains in both sales efficiency and digital engagement with customers.

📲 Progression to deputy CEO and growing BBVA ties. By late 2015 Genç had been promoted to deputy CEO of Garanti, with responsibilities expanded to include wholesale and investment banking activities alongside the retail business. His tenure at Garanti coincided with Spain’s BBVA increasing its ownership stake in the Turkish bank, ultimately becoming its largest shareholder, and his performance in Turkey brought him to the attention of BBVA’s senior leadership as they evaluated future executives for international roles.

🌎 Relocation to the United States with BBVA. In 2017 BBVA appointed Genç as CEO of BBVA Compass, its U.S. banking franchise based in Alabama, and as BBVA’s U.S. country manager, prompting his move from Istanbul to Houston. During his roughly two-year tenure running the American operations, BBVA’s U.S. unit was reported to be among the faster-growing regional retail banks and to have made significant progress in digital capabilities and customer-experience metrics, developments that reinforced his reputation within the group as a technology-oriented banking executive.

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BBVA chief executive and strategy

🧭 Appointment as chief executive officer. In November 2018 BBVA’s board unanimously selected Genç to become the group’s CEO as part of a leadership transition in which then-CEO Carlos Torres Vila moved to the role of executive chairman. Genç assumed the post on 31 December 2018, at age 44, making him one of the younger chief executives among major European banks and the first Turkish-born head of a large Spanish financial group. The appointment was framed by BBVA as a continuation of its strategy to accelerate digital transformation and leverage its international footprint, with Torres Vila describing Genç as “the ideal CEO” to push forward that agenda.

📱 Digital transformation and operating model. As CEO, Genç has placed digital channels and data-driven decision-making at the center of BBVA’s operating model, emphasizing investment in mobile and online platforms and in advanced analytics. During his tenure the bank’s mobile application in Spain has received industry recognition in independent rankings, and by around 2020 approximately half of BBVA’s global customer base was classified as active digital users, a milestone the bank highlighted as evidence of progress in its transformation program. Internally, he has supported agile working methods and encouraged local management teams to adapt products to their markets, arguing that technology should be combined with empowerment of front-line staff to improve customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Scores.

💰 Sale of BBVA’s U.S. operations. One of the most consequential strategic decisions early in Genç’s tenure was BBVA’s agreement in November 2020 to sell its entire U.S. subsidiary to PNC Financial Services for approximately US$11.6 billion in cash. The transaction, announced amid a challenging environment for bank profitability, allowed BBVA to exit a relatively low-return market at a price analysts regarded as attractive, and BBVA’s share price rose more than 15 percent on the day of the announcement. The deal freed capital that could be redeployed to bolster the group’s position in core markets or returned to shareholders, and Genç later oversaw a sizeable share-buyback program funded in part by the proceeds.

🤝 Unsuccessful merger talks with Banco Sabadell. Shortly after announcing the U.S. sale, BBVA under Genç entered into talks to merge with Spanish rival Banco Sabadell in an effort to gain additional scale in its home market. Negotiations broke down within weeks over disagreements on valuation, and BBVA announced that the discussions had ended, with Genç stressing that the bank had “other options” for deploying capital. The collapse of the potential merger led BBVA to prioritize share buybacks and organic growth initiatives over large-scale domestic consolidation, a choice some analysts interpreted as evidence of a disciplined approach to mergers and acquisitions.

🇹🇷 Increased exposure to Turkey through Garanti BBVA. In contrast to its exit from the United States, BBVA under Genç took a more expansionary stance in Turkey, where the group had long been an investor in Garanti BBVA. In 2021–2022 BBVA launched and completed a tender offer to increase its stake in Garanti from around 50 percent to approximately 86 percent, at a cost of about €1.4 billion. The move was made amid high inflation and currency volatility in Turkey, and Genç publicly defended the decision by describing Garanti as “the best bank in Turkey” and a core long-term asset for the group, while reiterating BBVA’s commitment to the Turkish market.

📈 Financial performance and shareholder returns. After the pandemic-related downturn of 2020, BBVA’s earnings recovered strongly under Genç’s leadership. In 2021 the bank reported its highest recurring profit in more than a decade, and in 2022 it recorded net income of €6.42 billion, then the highest annual profit in its history. That record was surpassed in 2023, when BBVA posted net profit of about €8.0 billion, an increase of roughly 26 percent over the prior year, which Spanish media described as a new historic high for the group. Return on tangible equity reached the mid-teens, significantly above the average for large European banks, and BBVA combined investment in digital and emerging-market growth with higher cash dividends and a share-repurchase program of around €3.5 billion, alongside a dividend payout ratio of roughly half of earnings.

💸 Sustainability agenda and governance initiatives. During Genç’s tenure BBVA has also expanded its environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments, including a target to mobilize €200 billion in sustainable finance by 2025, and has sought to integrate climate-related considerations into lending and investment decisions. The bank strengthened its board-level oversight of sustainability by appointing former European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard as a director and increased female representation on the board to around 40 percent, initiatives that have been presented as aligned with Genç’s public emphasis on diversity and responsible finance. BBVA has additionally issued principles on the ethical use of artificial intelligence and data in financial services, reflecting its view, shared by Genç, that digital innovation must be accompanied by clear governance frameworks.

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Compensation and board roles

💶 Chief executive compensation. As CEO of BBVA, Genç receives remuneration that combines fixed salary, variable performance-linked components and long-term incentives, in line with the bank’s executive-pay framework. In 2022 his total compensation amounted to about €7.15 million, including a base salary of approximately €2.17 million, an annual variable bonus of around €3.56 million, other benefits such as a cash allowance in lieu of pension and relocation support, and a smaller amount of perquisites. A portion of his bonus is deferred and delivered in BBVA shares over several years, subject to multi-year performance conditions and risk-adjustment mechanisms laid out in the bank’s remuneration policy.

📊 Share ownership and equity alignment. Over the course of his tenure as CEO, Genç has built up a personal shareholding in BBVA through both deferred remuneration and open-market purchases. In May 2020, during market volatility related to the COVID-19 pandemic, he acquired 100,000 additional BBVA shares for about €270,000, a transaction that was publicly disclosed and interpreted as a signal of confidence in the bank’s prospects. By early 2025 he was reported to hold roughly 1.1 million BBVA shares, corresponding to around 0.02 percent of the bank’s share capital, making his personal wealth significantly exposed to the group’s equity performance.

🪙 Board positions and external influence. In addition to serving as CEO, Genç sits on BBVA’s board of directors and is a member of its executive committee, participating in group-level strategic and governance decisions. He also holds positions on the boards of several BBVA subsidiaries, including entities in Mexico and Turkey, and has chaired or served as director of specialized units such as Garanti BBVA’s mortgage business. Beyond formal board roles, he appears regularly at international industry forums, such as conferences organized by the Institute of International Finance, where he discusses topics including digital banking, emerging markets and sustainable finance on behalf of BBVA.

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Personal life and leadership style

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Family and personal background. Genç has been married for more than two decades and is the father of twins, a son and a daughter born in the mid-2000s, although he has kept detailed information about his family largely private. After a period of frequent relocations early in his career, he and his family settled in Madrid, Spain, following his appointment as CEO of BBVA, with the city serving as his base while overseeing a bank that operates across Europe and the Americas. Colleagues and profiles have portrayed him as approachable and cosmopolitan, able to switch between discussions of Turkish football, American sports and technology trends in informal settings.

🧠 Interests and personality. Outside work, Genç has described travel as a primary hobby and has remarked that he might have become a travel photographer had he not pursued a career in banking, reflecting an interest in exploring different cultures. He is a long-time fan of the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers and also follows international soccer and plays basketball recreationally. He has indicated that he enjoys reading about science, economics and history, an intellectual range that mirrors his combination of engineering training and management responsibilities.

🌟 Leadership approach and internal reputation. In interviews, Genç has articulated a leadership philosophy built around entrepreneurship, empowerment and accountability, arguing that senior managers should encourage initiative while ensuring that responsibilities are clearly defined. He has emphasized the role of trust as the foundation of effective teams, stating that “there is nothing that can beat a strong team” in business and that the value of success increases with the number of people involved in achieving it. Within BBVA he is often described as analytically rigorous yet people-oriented, combining a willingness to examine detailed financial data with efforts to maintain informal contact with employees, including regular communications that aim to keep staff aligned around strategic objectives.

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Challenges, controversies and outlook

⚖️ Legacy legal issues and reputational management. Genç’s period as CEO has overlapped with the resolution of a long-running legal investigation in Spain into allegations that BBVA’s previous management hired an external security firm to conduct surveillance on business and political figures, sometimes referred to as the “Cenyt case”. Although the events under investigation pre-dated his appointment, the matter created reputational risks for the bank, and Genç publicly welcomed the eventual conclusion of the judicial probe, stating that BBVA had “nothing to add” beyond its cooperation and its desire to move forward. He has also overseen enhancements to internal control and compliance frameworks, presented as part of a broader effort to strengthen governance following the case.

🧮 Windfall tax on banks and policy debate. Another challenge during Genç’s tenure has been the introduction by the Spanish government of a temporary windfall tax on banks’ “excess” profits in the post-pandemic period. Genç has been openly critical of the measure, arguing in public remarks that such a tax “is not good for any country” and “hurts the economy” by potentially constraining credit supply and investment. BBVA joined other Spanish banks in assessing the financial impact of the levy and did not rule out legal avenues to challenge it, though ultimately the sector complied with the law while continuing dialogue with authorities regarding its effects on the banking system.

🧩 Restructuring and efficiency measures. Like many European banks, BBVA under Genç has undertaken restructuring initiatives, including branch closures and headcount reductions in Spain, aimed at adapting its cost base to increased digital use and low interest-rate environments. These measures prompted concern and protests from some labor unions but were defended by the bank’s management as necessary to safeguard long-term competitiveness and to reallocate resources toward technology and customer-facing digital services. BBVA set aside provisions for severance and offered retraining opportunities for affected employees, presenting the process as a combination of efficiency and social responsibility considerations.

🌿 Recognition and cross-border role. In December 2022 the Spanish–Turkish Chamber of Commerce honored Genç for his contribution to economic ties between Spain and Turkey, highlighting his role in overseeing BBVA’s investments in the Turkish banking sector and in representing Turkish executives in senior European corporate positions. The award underscored his status as a figure linking the two countries’ business communities and as an example of professional mobility from a regional Turkish background to the leadership of a global financial group.

🔮 Speculation about departure and board support. In mid-2022 media reports circulated suggesting that Genç might step down from BBVA or be recruited by another bank, leading to questions about management stability. He publicly rejected the reports as a “complete fabrication” and reiterated his commitment to BBVA’s strategy, comments that were followed by the board’s decision to propose his re-election as CEO at the 2022 and subsequent 2025 general shareholders’ meetings. The board’s continued backing was interpreted as a sign of confidence in the direction of the bank under his leadership and in the financial results achieved during his term.

🚀 Future priorities and outlook. Commentators have described Genç as representative of a newer generation of European bank CEOs who combine technology-focused strategies with traditional prudence on capital and risk. Looking ahead, his stated priorities for BBVA include further deployment of artificial intelligence and digital tools in retail and corporate banking, selective geographic expansion such as digital banking initiatives in markets like Italy, and continued progress on sustainability and inclusive growth objectives. As economic conditions evolve, he has framed BBVA’s role as bringing the “age of opportunity” to its customers and communities, summarizing a view of banking as both a data-intensive and people-centered business that depends on coordination across the group’s international footprint.

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