(Bloomberg) -- Erste Group Bank AG picked Peter Bosek as its chief executive officer, bringing the former board member back after passing on him in a previous leadership race.

Bosek will take over at eastern Europe’s largest bank from July 2024, the company said in a statement Wednesday. He replaces Willi Cernko, who had been serving with a two-year interim mandate.

The appointment brings the current CEO of Estonia’s Luminor Bank back to his previous workplace after falling short in the contest to replace long-standing executive Andreas Treichl. During that contest in 2018, Bosek was among the executives under consideration. Erste Group ultimately chose Bernd Spalt, who then fell out with the supervisory board over strategy and left the company in 2022.

Bosek, 55, has been steering the Estonian lender after it was purchased by a Blackstone-led consortium of private equity funds. He previously led the Vienna-based Erste Group’s Austrian unit and served as chief retail officer at the group level.

“I have been closely associated with Erste for more than half of my life,” Bosek said in the statement. “That is why I am all the more pleased to be returning to Erste Group as CEO after spending exciting years and experiencing a tremendous change of perspective in the Baltic States.” 

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