A well-known Genevan academic is continuing her steep ascent in finance with a job at France's largest bank.

Women in finance remain seriously underrepresented in Switzerland: names like Isabelle Romy and Beatrice Weder di Mauro (both UBS directors), Iris Bohnet (Credit Suisse) or Monica Maechler (Zurich, GAM) are still a rarity in predominantly male top management and boards of big Swiss finance firms.

Rajna Gibson Brandon, who in spring stepped down from Swiss Re's board after 18 years, is a star among women in finance. The 55-year-old became a professor of finance in Lausanne when she was 28. Her research focused on asset pricing, experimental financing, corporate governance, and sustainable finance.

Now, France's BNP Paribas has proposed Gibson Brandon for its board. She is to replace Laurence Parisot, who moves to an operating role at Citigroup. Gibson Brandon is the sixth woman on the 12-member BNP Paribas board.

Regulatory Stint

Gibson Brandon's career has been exceptional: her academic career quickly led to regulatory and private sector roles. In 1997, she was the youngest member of the Federal Banking Commission, as the Swiss finance regulator was then known. In 2000, she joined the board of reinsurer Swiss Re.

The Genevan has devoted most of her career however to academia and to building a bridge between theory and practice. She oversees a scientific committee of AZEK, a training ground in Switzerland for investment professionals, and sits on the board of the Natixis Foundation for Quantitative Research, a body set up by French asset managers to foster research and innovation.

Geneva Focus

Gibson Brandon taught at the University of Zurich but her focus has been strongest in Geneva, where she has been a professor of finance since 2008. Shortly after, she launched the Geneva Finance Research Institute, which researches portfolio management as well as finance and society.

She stepped down from running the institute two years ago, taking over the Geneva Institute of Wealth Management instead. Gibson Brandon  once said of herself that she deliberately chose an academic career because she would have time to think and develop models for private sector use. With BNP Paribas, she has take a huge step forward in her private sector career.