Ronald Kasteel joins Onegini to lead international expansion drive

Ronald Kasteel, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Netherlands-headquartered IT consultancy Ordina, has been appointed as CEO of Onegini. The company’s new leader has been tasked with realising the firm’s European growth ambition.

Onegini is a software firm that provides Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solutions to companies in a range of sectors, with a focus on financial services, including banking institutions and insurance companies. The firm’s software allows its clients to connect, manage, and engage with their customers in an environment and manner that provides a “great customer experience”, while providing organisations and consumers with security. Examples of functionalities covered include step-up authentication, user management, and authentication.

Since its founding in 2011, Onegini has seen rapid growth, currently working with over 200 client organisations who combined serve 45 million users in 15-plus countries. The firm’s founders, Jeroen Starrenburg and Denis Joannides,  are convinced however that the company is well positioned to successfully grow its footprint into a pan-European, and, further down the line, a global one. “We’re looking forward to securing more funding and spreading our wings internationally.” 

To help them execute their ambitious plan, the co-founders have brought experienced executive Ronald Kasteel on board. Kasteel has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and will replace Starrenburg and Joannides at the top of the Board, with the founding pair remaining fully involved in the company and diverting more of their time to growth, key relationships and innovation. “This is the right time for Ronald Kasteel to take over as CEO,” said Starrenburg, adding, “We are experiencing rapid growth, and that requires a strong leader.”

Joannides further added that he believes it is an absolute compliment to the firm and its employees that an executive with the stature of Kasteel has accepted to commit his time to Onegini. Kasteel previously led Ordina, a Benelux based IT consultancy with over 2,600 employees, for 12 years as CEO and Chairman, and more recently co-founded KeyLane, a provider of software to insurance companies. In the past years he worked as an investor, coach to ambitious start-ups in the Netherlands, and non-executive board member. 

“I frequently invest in companies, but occasionally I want to be part of the management because I’m interested in the field, because I believe in the product and because I think there’s something to build on. Onegini is such a company,” said Kasteel. He added; “Onegini has an impressive client base in the Dutch financial sector, I see plenty of potential to put Onegini on the international map.”

Among the financial services clients Woerden-based Onegini supports in the Netherlands are Aegon, Aon, Obvion, Van Lanschot, VGZ and Univé. Kasteel said that he now wants to leverage the track record built across its portfolio to expand its wings to other European markets. “There are still extensive gains to be made in the digital onboarding of customers,” highlighted Kasteel as one area where he sees opportunities.

Against a backdrop of growing competition from challengers and growing regulatory pressure, banks are increasingly seeing client onboarding become a competitive differentiator. While banks used to enjoy the luxury of having weeks to process the opening of bank accounts for their customers, the rise of digital banks such as Revolut in the UK, N26 in Germany or Bunq in the Netherlands now means that clients can open their accounts in the space of days or even hours. As a result, incumbents are having to redesign the way they onboard clients, with systems such as Onegini’s CIAM solution proving popular in achieving a more customer-oriented and agile process. Onegini’s tool also provides support for compliance to regulations including Know Your Customer (KYC) and GDPR. “Onegini has the right software product,” remarked Kasteel.

Onegini has already recently expanded into the Belgian and German markets, with Kasteel currently assessing the options for entering the Scandinavian and the US markets.