The Swiss bank has lost several of its most promising female talents recently. finews.com takes a look at the influential women remaining in Credit Suisse's pool of top talent.
The Zurich-based bank is, like most Swiss banks, attempting to improve the representation of women as well as minorities in its ranks. A flood of high-profile exits recently undermines these efforts.
Specifically, long-time strategist Christine Schmid left for start-up Additiv; regulatory lead Saumya Bhavsar left recently; and product digitizer Kathrin Wehrli, who was poached by Raiffeisen for top management. The sudden exit of Florence Schnydrig-Moser, who still had half a foot in the door as CEO of Credit Suisse co-owned Swisscard, also stung.
Neither Targets Nor Quotas
At Credit Suisse, the air is still thin for women the higher they rise – though the bank has roughly doubled its ranks of female managing directors, or MDs, compared to just after the financial crisis of 2008/09. Despite three women in its top management including one (Antoinette Poeschung) specifically tasked with diversity, the Swiss bank hasn't set itself hiring targets or quotas.
Just one-fifth – 22 percent – of senior staff, meaning either directors or MDs, are women, according to its annual report. finews.com looks at the most influential Credit Suisse female executives and bankers (in no particular order):
1. Homa Siddiqui
The operating chief Lara Warner, Siddiqui has emerged as a key digital transformation person – and versatile: she spent her first eight years with the bank as its head of platform strategy and governance for its private bank.
The American banker began her career in consulting, before moving to Morgan Stanley – and then Credit Suisse in 2007. In particular, she is a vocal advocate of building a data culture – the Swiss bank fast-tracked a compliance tool as part of a 2018 money laundering sanction.
2. Andreea Grob
A close ally of ex-private bank head Iqbal Khan, Grob is one of roughly 250 key executives in the unit. The Genevan native began her career on the foreign exchange trading floor, before taking her first wealth management job, at UBS, in 1999.
It’s been uphill for Grob from there: after eight years at UBS, she jumped to Deutsche Bank’s private bank, which made her a managing director and later gave her its U.K. business to run. In 2017 Khan poached her to Credit Suisse, where she is deputy chair of the strategic client partners and also heavily involved in diversity efforts.
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