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Italy and Spain, where we are a universal bank and offer the full strength of our franchise as a corporate, commercial, private and retail bank; and the U.K., where we are recognized as one of the top five banks on the street.

You didn’t mention Switzerland among those four. Does it play a role?
 
Switzerland is important. The Swiss bank is our primary booking center for emerging markets. Secondly, we want to service international families that are domiciled in Switzerland.

«Entrepreneurial families who moved to Switzerland»

These are families from all over the world – as far as India or as close as Germany – that have moved to Switzerland and are a key segment for us, given our focus on entrepreneurial families.

Deutsche Bank has been very active in recruiting private bankers. Is that translating into new money?

We have had a significant conversion rate of net new money from new bankers. I believe this is probably because our hiring strategy is so focused. We will take on only ultra-high net worth bankers with established relationships with large families.

One of the first things you did in your new role was to cut some of the European heads of business.

One of the guiding principles of my management style is a flat organization. I don’t want more than a few layers between me and the client.

«I don't want clients to feel a distance»

At other Swiss banks and also the large American ones there are sometimes as many as ten or 12 layers between the bankers and the CEO. The clients feel this distance. At Deutsche Bank there are typically two layers at most. 
 
Amidst all of the changes what would you like to retain about the business?

The beauty of this platform is that it is run as a boutique in terms of how flat it is - I am on the group management committee and also only a couple of steps away from any wealth management client. But we are also one of the only firms to have booking capabilities in as many geographies as we do. We have a unique combination of a very international platform with a very boutique service.

 Claudio de Sanctis is the head of wealth management at Deutsche Bank, which manages $230 billion in assets. Based in Zurich, de Sanctis is also the CEO of Deutsche Bank in Switzerland, a position he was appointed to when he joined the bank in December 2018. A career private banker, the 46-year-old Italian native was Credit Suisse's head of private banking in Europe and previously a managing director at UBS. He is a graduate of the Universita La Sapienza di Roma with a degree in philosophy.