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Christian Staub, Blackrock’s country chief for Switzerland, is leaving the U.S. firm for a leading position at a rival in Europe, finews.com can exclusively report.

Blackrock country manager Switzerland Christian Staub is leaving the company, a source familiar with the matter told finews.com. He departs with immediate effect, a spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday.

Staub is climbing the career ladder: he has been appointed head of Europe at Fidelity International. The U.S. firm has some $300 billion in assets under management in Europe. Fidelity International also comprises the business in Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Europe however is by far the largest business outside the U.S. The company in total has more than $2.1 trillion in assets under management, making it the biggest purely active asset manager worldwide. Fidelity didn’t comment the appointment so far.

Four-Year Stint

Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager. The iShares exchange-traded-funds business and the risk management tool Aladdin are main pillars of its business, founded and still managed by Larry Fink.

The departure of Staub wasn’t the consequence of disagreements within the company – he simply seems to have received a very good offer from Fidelity. Staub joined Blackrock in the summer of 2014, succeeding Martin Gut, who had left the asset manager abruptly at the end of 2013.