2. Marcel Ospel: Monolith
The mercurial Swiss banker dominated UBS for years – from a distance. He ceded the CEO spot back in 2001 to become chairman. But Marcel Ospel, Stephan Haeringer, and Marco Suter maintained tight control from behind the scenes over everyday decisions like big investment banking loans through the so-called chairman’s office.
Ospel clung to power until early 2008, months before the rescue. Since then, the hard-partying Swiss banker is considered persona non-grata in Switzerland.
He lives a reclusive life in a tax-friendly community outside Zurich with wife Adriana Bodmer and their two children. Ospel even eschews his beloved carnival festivities in his Basel hometown. Bodmer, a Swiss banker 25 years his junior, runs an M&A boutique in Zurich, but keeps an equally low-key profile.
