A veteran Swiss private banker will oversee the European expansion of a heavyweight U.S. fintech backed by Blackrock.
Icapital is hiring Marco Bizzozero as its international head, effective December 1, the New York-based firm said in a statement on Monday. A long-time private equity banker, Bizzozero is currenty head of wealth management at Unicredit in Milan.
His hire, previously reported by «Inside Paradeplatz,» (in German), is part of a broader expansion push for Icapital, an alternative investment platform which is owned and run by founder Lawrence Calcano. The seven-year-old start-up hoovered up $146 million in funding earlier this year including from Blackrock.
European Acquisition
Besides Bizzozero, who will report to Calcano, Icapital is also hiring Tom Slocock as head of its international product development and origination. Like Bizzozero, who most recently ran Deutsche Bank in Switzerland until three years ago, Slocock is a veteran of the German lender.
Icapital opened an office in Zurich two years ago and will shortly open another in Portugal, where it is acquiring a 65-person tech firm, Runtime. The new Lisbon office will be Icapital’s hub for technology development and operations.
Banking Defections
The fintech also plans to open offices in London and Singapore early next year, it said. The company is backed by Wall Street players including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BNY Mellon, Carlyle Group as well as Credit Suisse and UBS.
Bizzozero, who also ran Deutsche's private bank in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, is the latest in a series of bankers to defect for start-ups: ex-Credit Suisse derivatives banker Daniel Sandmeier now runs Instimatch, while UBS fixed income veteran Erik Tham defected to MarketAxess two years ago.
