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Many of UBS' innovation stars have left, and the Swiss wealth manager is looking to new technology gurus to produce desperately-needed new ideas. 

Mike Dargan is little-known outside of UBS, but highly influential inside the Zurich-based bank. With a budget of $3.5 billion and roughly 20,000 employees, former Standard Chartered banker Dargan represents UBS' biggest hope at the moment.

The Swiss bank stock is languishing, partly out of fear that as a wealth management supertanker, UBS won't be agile enough at adapting to the new digital realities gripping the industry. UBS is vulnerable to more nimble and tech-focused banks, fintechs, and wealth management providers – not to mention tech giants like Amazon, Google, Alibaba, or Tencent, the thinking goes.

No Guru-Like Pull

Dargan has little of the star power common among digital and innovation gurus who preach big ideas and view technology as a circus of ideas. Dargan has kept a low profile since he joined UBS nearly three years ago and replaced the illustrious Oliver Bussmann in top innovation job. At ex-Oliver Wyman consultant, he described a five-step analytical approach to technology, from vision to boots on the ground, to «Gigabitmagazine» in 2017. 

Last month, Dargan divvied up a key tech role between Deutsche Banker Elly Hardwick (pictured below) and Rick Carey. The move seemed to signal that Dargan is moving to the «how» phase of his five-step approach: ring-fencing activities with clear structures in traditionally free-wheeling innovation and technology discovery. The goal is increasingly to tackle projects with a tangible benefit for the bank. 

Elly Hardwick

UBS missed the mark with Smartwealth, a digital wealth manager it halted last summer after a major management change. Dargan will be painfully aware of the Swiss bank's over-engineering Smartwealth from an innovative and nimble project into a high-maintenance machine which may have pleased UBS' private bankers, but foundered with actual clients.