UBS Chairman Axel Weber wants the Swiss bank to be less pale, male, and stale. Its new mega-private bank boasts a nearly even gender balance. Is it enough?

Not just lip service: Chairman Axel Weber last year called for more women in executive and leadership positions at traditionally male-dominated UBS. His goal? At least one-third of top management jobs should go to women.

The former Bundesbanker called for more women at UBS' flagship wealth management arm. One year later, the bank has delivered: women are the big winners in a mega-merger of its wider private bank and U.S. brokerage under co-heads Martin Blessing and Tom Naratil.

The top executives reporting to the duo counts eight women of total 18 members:

  • Christine Novakovic (EMEA head)
  • Sylvia Coutinho (Latin America boss)
  • Paula Polito (responsible for strategy) 
  • Barbara Hofkamp (chief of staff)
  • Kate Newcomb (chief of staff)
  • Maria Leistner (chief lawyer)
  • Dana Ritzcovan (head of human resources)
  • Marsha Askins (communications head)

With Kathleen Lynch as operating chief of UBS' wealth management arm in the U.S., another woman has joined the ranks of top management, though she will not sit on the executive committee directly reporting to Blessing and Naratil. 

This brings the female share of power at the private bank to 40 percent – topping Weber's quota of at least 30 percent. The former central banker who joined the Swiss bank six years ago has increasingly cast his attention to social and equality issues inn recent years. Under Weber, UBS has pushed far deeper into sustainability, which has raised some conflicts as finews.com reported, as well as gender diversity.

Lagarde's «Imperative»

The overarching goals aren't Weber's own invention, but lean on those of larger supranational organizations like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund, where head Christine Lagarde three years ago called gender diversity in business a «moral imperative».

The «imperative» has been particularly difficult to enforce in finance, large parts of which are still dominated by male executives despite a relatively equal number of men and women who study business and economics.

Equality rights aside, advocates for gender diversity have argued for diversity as an advantage in business. If female bankers took a big step forward this week at UBS, the wider industry especially in Switzerland still lags other sectors as well as other countries.

UBS' Scorecard

In its home market, for example, UBS veteran Karin Oertli is the only woman in a seven-member management layer. UBS' top management also counts only two women – Asia boss Kathryn Shih and operating chief Sabine Keller-Busse – among 11 men.

UBS' board actually fulfills Weber's 30 percent quota with four women: former insurance executive Ann Godbehere; private equity banker Julie Richardson; securities lawyer Isabelle Romy; and former monetary policy advisor Beatrice Weder die Mauro. UBS' investment bank is a close runner-up, with four women of 13 top executives (temporary finance chief Fiona McCarthy; operating chief Beatriz Jimenez; Siobhan McDonagh, who heads human resources; and chief of staff Emma Molvidson).

The root of the problem? A majority of women don't find banking careers appealing, according to a  recent survey of 1,200 students conducted by Lucerne University. Finance was seen as difficult to reconcile with moral values and personal integrity, too competitive and not very team-oriented – and male-dominated.