DNB, Norway's largest financial services group, announced on 12 August 2025 that Rasmus Figenschou would assume the role of Chief Financial Officer with effect from 24 October 2025. The appointment was disclosed in a press release published on DNB's investor relations platform and follows the decision by incumbent CFO Ida Lerner to leave the group to accept a new position outside the Nordic region. The announcement also set out the subsequent changes to the broader Group Management Team that Lerner's departure makes necessary.
Figenschou has served as Group Executive Vice President of Corporate Banking Norway within DNB, a role that has given him deep familiarity with the group's commercial lending operations and its relationships with corporate clients across the home market. His promotion to the CFO position represents an internal succession that draws on well-established institutional knowledge of DNB's business, balance sheet, and strategic priorities rather than requiring the onboarding of an external hire. The effective date in late October 2025 provides a transition window of approximately ten weeks following the public announcement.
IDA LERNER DEPARTS FOR EXTERNAL ROLE
Ida Lerner, who has served as CFO at DNB, is departing to take up a new role outside the Nordic region. Her exit creates the vacancy that Figenschou will fill, and her departure was described in the company's press release as a move to accept a new position rather than a retirement or other withdrawal from executive life. Lerner leaves DNB at a time when the group is performing strongly against a backdrop of elevated interest rates that have been broadly favourable for Nordic banks' net interest income over the period since the monetary tightening cycle began.
The CFO role at a systemically important Nordic bank carries significant responsibility across financial reporting, capital management, investor relations, and treasury operations. The position requires fluency in regulatory capital frameworks, the demands of institutional investors who hold DNB's listed securities, and the internal financial planning disciplines of a complex financial group operating across multiple countries and product lines. Lerner's time in the position covered a period of considerable monetary policy variability, and her successor inherits a balance sheet and financial framework shaped by those transitions.
MARIANNE WIK SÆTRE TO LEAD CORPORATE BANKING NORWAY
With Figenschou stepping up to the CFO role, DNB confirmed that Marianne Wik Sætre would succeed him as Group Executive Vice President of Corporate Banking Norway. The simultaneous announcement of both appointments reflects a co-ordinated succession plan that avoids leaving the Corporate Banking Norway leadership position vacant during the transition period. Wik Sætre's appointment ensures continuity in what is one of DNB's most commercially significant business units, providing lending and financial services to Norwegian corporate clients across a broad range of sectors.
The changes to DNB's Group Management Team represent a managed rotation at senior level rather than a disruptive overhaul of the institution's leadership structure. For DNB's shareholders and counterparties, the internal nature of the CFO succession — with a well-known executive promoted from a senior operational role — carries the implicit message that the group's financial strategy and capital framework will remain on a consistent trajectory through the change. Figenschou's formal assumption of CFO duties in late October 2025 will mark the moment he takes direct responsibility for the financial direction of one of Scandinavia's most significant banking groups.