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Raphael appears to have lost support within the bank following Zeltner's ouster. On Monday, CEO Sergio Ermotti highlighted the expansion of UBS' ultra-rich business as a top management priority, which suggests a strengthening of Stadler's role.

Raphael also had a lackluster 2017 in performance terms: the wealth units he oversees managed to stanch massive withdrawals at year-end, but only eked out 2.3 billion Swiss francs in net new money. To be sure, the emerging markets business was extremely profitable under Raphael: it contributes an overproportionate profit to the wider wealth arm for its size.

Delayed Gratification

The shuffle is the latest change sparked by Zeltner's departure last month – the winners of which are Martin Blessing and Tom Naratil as co-heads of a new, uber-private bank as well as Novakovic. The 54-year-old banker has seized the third key spot in UBS' flagship business – a spot she shares with Edmund Koh, who runs the Swiss bank's Asian wealth arm.

For Novakovic, the move represents delayed gratification. Trained as an art dealer, she was hired as Citibank's head of Germany at just 37. Observers predicted a similarly stratospheric rise for her when she joined UBS seven years ago after leaving the industry shortly before the financial crisis.

Though she was promoted to also run UBS' investment bank in Switzerland four years ago, she was passed over for the overall Swiss job in 2016 when Blessing, formerly CEO of Commerbank, joined the bank. With the emerging markets and Europe move, Novakovic has definitely hit the international stage.