These Swiss bankers took a huge professional step this year – if not the defining one of their career. Here's is finews.asia's compilation of who to watch out for in 2017.
Axel Lehmann: New Career
He could have turned into a professional board representative: he's already been a member of UBS' board, and as a senior executive of an international insurance firm like Zurich, he would have been welcomed for any number of new mandates. Instead, the 56-year-old Axel Lehmann is taking a professional leap.
Swiss-born Lehmann moved into the Swiss bank's top management this year as operating chief, making him one of Switzerland's most important bankers. He's may be living in the shadows of his boss, CEO Sergio Ermotti, but this isn't necessarily a disadvantage – at least right now.
Lehmann appears to be in a plum position to move even higher, perhaps as a successor for Ermotti, who shows no signs of slowing down.
Thomas Gottstein: The Toughest Job
The Zurich native is known for having Swiss banking's toughest job at the moment: Thomas Gottstein is preparing Credit Suisse's Swiss unit for a minority public listing as soon as later this year. No small feat in the current environment of rapid and dramatic change in the financial services industry and an ongoing, multi-year restructuring for the Swiss bank.
Gottstein, a veteran investment banker who has also worked for UBS and until now was not widely known outside of corporate finance circles, is a credible representative for the major project, which will figure as one of European banking's largest next year.
For Gottstein, the coming months mean trimming the Swiss unit into shape, motivating staff to master the Herculean organizational task ahead, and protect the unit from Credit Suisse turf wars.
Martin Blessing: High Bar
The appointment of Martin Blessing in May to the top Swiss post at UBS was a surprise, but also highly unusual: from CEO of Commerzbank to unit head at a rival, but also a German native to a role that has traditionally been held by a Swiss-born banker.
Blessing is undoubtedly another candidate to bequeath CEO Sergio Ermotti, who has shown no signs of slowing down, but first he has to prove himself. That's a high bar considering his predecessor, Lukas Gaehwiler, has left him an impeccably-running shop after six years in the job.
Mario Greco: Mr. Fitness
Italian executive Mario Greco led Zurich Insurance's life and property segments for several years before Generali needed a savior and named him CEO in 2012. He trimmed the Italian insurer into shape, in part through rigorous cost-cutting.
Now, he's put Zurich on the same diet, after returning to the Swiss insurer in May. Greco, who had kept his lakeside villa in Zurich during his time at Generali in Trieste, has ordered 8,000 jobs of Zurich's 55,000 overall cut.
Dagmar Kamber: Experienced, Self-Reflective
After 18 years with UBS, lawyer-turned-banker Dagmar Maria Kamber Borens defected to Credit Suisse this year, where she is operating chief of the soon-to-be hived off Swiss unit. In other words, she is Thomas Gottstein's (see above) right hand, acting in close collaboration with the rank and file Credit Suisse is looking towards to make the unit's IPO a commercial success.
The 44-year-old banker is experienced and self-reflective enough to know what she has gotten herself into. She has already put together her leadership team, breaking with old networks and alliances in favor of executives she believes can most effectively get the job done. Granted wide-ranging authority and autonomy by Gottstein, Kamber Borens' next year will be a career-defining one.
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