Vontobel is expanding the ranks of its top management team to position it for the coming years.

Christel Rendu de Lint takes over as head of Vontobel Investments from CEO Zeno Staub effective tomorrow and becomes a member of the Executive Committee of Vontobel Holding, according to a statement Thursday.

The Center of Excellence Investments represents the six investment boutiques Quality Growth, Sustainable Equities, TwentyFour Asset Management, Fixed Income, Vontobel Multi-Asset, and Vescore, which are led by Matthew Benkendorf, Jean-Louis Nakamura, Ben Hayward, Simon Lue-Fong, Dan Scott and Daniel Seiler, respectively. 

Managing Over 120 Billion Francs

Around 300 professionals work at the investment boutiques' offices in Hong Kong, London, Milan, Munich, New York, and Zurich, managing over 120 billion Swiss francs for their clients.

Rendu de Lint joined Vontobel in May 2021 as deputy head of investments from Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) where she built and led a fixed-income boutique that grew from around 1 billion francs in assets when she joined in 2007 to 20 billion by the end of 2020.

UK Treasury Experience

Before UBP, Rendu de Lint was a senior fixed-income portfolio manager at Pictet. She started her financial career in 2000 at Morgan Stanley in London as a senior economist in sell-side equity research.

Before that, she studied at the London Business School where she earned her Ph.D. in Economics,  during which time, she worked on various research projects for the IMF, the UK Treasury, and the Swiss National Bank.

Internationally Recognized

At the time of Vontobel’s repositioning as a global, client-centric pure-play investment firm in 2020, Zeno Staub took over the management of Investments and of the Digital Investing Client Unit in addition to his position as CEO.

He already handed over the management of the Client Unit two years ago and is now also handing over responsibility for Investments to his deputy, Rendu de Lint, in order to focus fully on his role as CEO.

«I am very pleased that Christel Rendu de Lint, an internationally recognized investment expert, is taking over the management of our Investment team, which largely embodies Vontobel’s value proposition for clients – empowering them to build better futures,» Staub said.

New Board Committee

Vontobel’s Board of Directors established a new committee – the Investment Oversight Committee – on January 1, 2023. With the Investment Oversight Committee, the Board of Directors is implementing an appropriate institutional framework for the assumption of its fiduciary supervisory duties as the most senior governing body of the investment firm Vontobel.

The new Committee is chaired by Andreas Utermann, Chairman of the Board of Directors. The Investment Oversight Committee will also comprise Elisabeth Bourqui and Björn Wettergren, who are both members of Vontobel’s Board of Directors.