Switzerland's largest bank is replacing long-standing CEO Sergio Ermotti with Ralph Hamers, who currently runs Dutch ING.
The Swiss bank is hiring Ralph Hamers as CEO, effective in November, it said in a statement. Hamers replaces Sergio Ermotti, who has run the Swiss wealth management giant since 2011.
The move ends more than a year of speculation over UBS' leadership and at least one bumbled attempt to tackle it. The appointment of the 53-year-old Hamers, who has run ING since 2013, is a surprise. The hire is a tacit admission by UBS that it needs more dramatic help getting itself into fighting form as digital challengers arise.
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A Dutch banker who has spent virtually his entire career in Europe, Hamers is widely credited with shifting ING's business model. The Dutch bank is held up as one of the best examples of digital innovation in the sector.
«As the industry undergoes fundamental change, Ralph is the person to lead UBS’s continued transformation and build upon its successful strategy as the world’s largest and only truly global wealth manager and the leading universal bank in Switzerland, enhanced by its investment bank and asset management,» UBS Chairman Axel Weber said.
Hamers will join UBS in September, before taking the top job from Ermotti two months later, in order to ensure an orderly succession.
More to follow.
