Many of UBS' innovation stars have left, and the wealth manager is looking to new technology gurus to produce desperately-needed new ideas.
Mike Dargan is little-known outside of UBS, but highly influential inside the Zurich-based bank. With a budget of $3.5 billion and roughly 20,000 employees, former Standard Chartered banker Dargan represents UBS' biggest hope at the moment.
The Swiss bank stock is languishing, partly out of fear that as a wealth management supertanker, UBS won't be agile enough at adapting to the new digital realities gripping the industry. UBS is vulnerable to more nimble and tech-focused banks, fintechs, and wealth management providers – not to mention tech giants like Amazon, Google, Alibaba, or Tencent, the thinking goes.
No Guru-Like Pull
Dargan has little of the star power common among digital and innovation gurus who preach big ideas and view technology as a circus of ideas. Dargan has kept a low profile since he joined UBS nearly three years ago and replaced the illustrious Oliver Bussmann in top innovation job.
An ex-Oliver Wyman consultant, he described a five-step analytical approach to technology, from vision to boots on the ground, to «Gigabitmagazine» in 2017.
Last month, Dargan divvied up a key tech role between Deutsche Banker Elly Hardwick (pictured below) and Rick Carey. The move seemed to signal that Dargan is moving to the «how» phase of his five-step approach: ring-fencing activities with clear structures in traditionally free-wheeling innovation and technology discovery. The goal is increasingly to tackle projects with a tangible benefit for the bank.
UBS missed the mark with Smartwealth, a digital wealth manager it halted last summer after a major management change. Dargan will be painfully aware of the bank's over-engineering Smartwealth from an innovative and nimble project into a high-maintenance machine which may have pleased UBS' private bankers but foundered with actual clients.
AI and Cloud Know-How
The hire of Hardwick and Carey will trickle down into more organizational and staffing changes – the first victim is Hans Juergen Riede, the tech chief whom Carey, who is based in New York, replaces.
Carey, an ex-J.P. Morgan banker, is focusing on UBS' information technology systems as well as cloud migration. Meanwhile, digital chief Hardwick will represent UBS as the bank's main tech and innovation thinker. She will also build an «Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence», a bid to extract more value and efficiency for the bank through automating processes and services.
Old Guard Departs
The old-guard of UBS' innovators and figureheads are almost all gone: Alex Batlin, head of UBS' London-based Level39 lab, followed Bussmann out the door. Batlin's successor, Peter Stephens, seems to have also since left the bank. UBS recently hired Thomson Reuters veteran Sam Chadwick, a well-known face in Zug's crypto valley, to run Level39.
Dave Bruno, the quirky head of UBS' wealth lab in Zurich, was replaced by Martin Meyer, who previously worked in UBS' marketing department.
In Singapore, James Aylen (pictured above) now runs the «Evolve» innovation center after the departure of Ketan Samani (pictured below) last year.
UBS Tech Holdovers
And little is heard from Andreas Kubli, the public face of the bank's digitization efforts in Switzerland. Dirk Klee fell prey to a revamp sparked by the merger of UBS' private bank with its U.S. brokerage last year; the widely-respected banker was responsible for building a united European booking platform for UBS.
The holdovers from the previous era are Markus Iofcea, who runs UBS think-tank Y, and Veronica Lange (pictured above). The five-year veteran of UBS still holds the role of head of innovation, but who with Hardwick now has a new boss in London who is likely to shake up the organization to her taste.
Realize Rapidly, Fail Fast
Will the new set-up take flight for UBS? The torpid, process-driven bank won't turn into an agile fintech overnight – but Dargan and Hardwick can focus on the how and the why, or on empowering his people and improving UBS' processes.
Budget, resources, and development speed will play the largest role. In other words, Dargan needs to show that he can deliver ideas and projects with tangible added value, as well as turn them into reality on budget. Or – just as important with innovation – fail doomed projects fast.
