Inside the Foundation

A look inside ERSTE Foundation’s operating system

Protect

ERSTE Foundation protects the shareholder structure of Erste Group and guarantees that its assets remain relevant to its funding principles..

Empower

We empower initiatives for change, contribute to civil society development and regional progression.

Create

ERSTE Foundation initiates and acts as innovative driver, connector, and knowledge disseminator in the societies. We aim at understanding and populating the public discourse about the right change we need.

As core shareholder of Erste Group ERSTE Foundation secures the independent future of one of the largest financial services providers in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe. As a private Austrian savings banks foundation, the foundation is committed to serve the common good. We invest parts of our dividends into the region in which Erste Group operates.

We focus on four strategic goals

ERSTE Foundation Annual Report 2022

Florian Bauer

Director Social Finance, Sustainability and Innovation
Since 2023, Florian Bauer has been responsible for social finance, sustainability and social innovation at ERSTE Foundation. Prior to this role, Florian worked in the NGO & Social Entrepreneurship sector for more than 13 years. He led the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), an international multilateral NGO that works to accelerate market-based deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient systems in developing countries, and was Managing Director & COO of the Impact Hub Vienna. From 2020-2023, Florian established strategic alliances with key partners and helped to create innovative semantic technology solutions at Semantic Web Company (SWC), a leading IT company in semantic AI solutions.