For most people, being sacked at a press conference would be their worst nightmare. For Raiffeisen's long-standing former legal counsel Nadja Ceregato, the saga is just beginning.

Nadja Ceregato’s LinkedIn profile says that she is «in continuing education at Harvard Business School». In fact, she is at the epicenter of the biggest scandal in Swiss banking since the financial crisis.

Ceregato is the wife of long-standing former Raiffeisen boss Pierin Vincenz. The star banker has been remanded in a Zurich jail for more than three weeks as investigators look for evidence that Vincenz enriched himself with secret personal deals on the side of Raiffeisen’s transactions. Prosecutors will want to know what she knew – questions she will find difficult to answer because she was part of her husband's innermost circle at Raiffeisen for ten years. 

Vincenz, a charismatic, publicity-seeking Swiss banker, has seen his legacy successively dismantled since he retired from Raiffeisen in 2015, culminating in a criminal probe brought by former business partners. The scion of a prominent Swiss lawmaker and banker, the 61-year-old's has has little hope of rehabilitating his reputation in Switzerland's tight-knit financial community, even if the investigation were to fizzle out.

Innermost Circle

Ceregato has emerged as a linchpin in the investigation: the 48-year-old lawyer ran Raiffeisen’s legal and compliance dealings from 2005 until last year. In 2015, Vincenz’s protégé and successor Patrik Gisel promoted her to top management.

Along with Gisel, Ceregato was also part of the innermost circle around Vincenz at the cooperatively-organized lender. Her role as the legal overseer of him as CEO raised eyebrows after their 2008 marriage, but was tolerated by Switzerland’s financial regulator, Finma and by Raiffeisen's board (Chairman Johannes Rueegg-Stuerm stepped down abruptly two weeks ago).