Andrea Orcel, the newly-minted CEO of Unicredit, is enlisting several of his lieutenants from UBS to retool the Italian bank's strategy and culture.
Less than four weeks into the top job at Milan-based Unicredit, Andrea Orcel unveiled his 13-person top management, in a statement on Wednesday. He is leaning heavily on former associates from UBS' investment bank, which he ran until 2018.
Three of the top Unicredit executives – Fiona Melrose, Joanna Carss, and Annie Coleman – are former managing directors at UBS. Melrose, UBS' investment bank's former strategy chief, is taking on the same role as well as head of optimization. Orcel took this head-on by ditching management committees and other, bulkier parts of Unicredit's set-up.
«Heard Your Concerns»
Carss will take on a stakeholder engagement role, which includes investor relations, identity and communications, and institutional as well as regulatory affairs. She was previously a managing director at the Swiss bank, and most recently responsible for Orcel's communications.
«I have heard your concerns about the complexity of our business...I have felt your frustration about some of the decisions that have been made; confusion about where ultimate responsibility lies; and the resulting lack of accountability,» CEO Orcel wrote to UniCredit staff on Wednesday, according to «Reuters».
No Command And Control
He is also hiring Annie Coleman, who oversaw UBS' culture and client marketing until last year. She has worked as a coach and consultant since leaving the Swiss wealth manager last spring. «We will move away from a command and control system towards one that recognizes the importance and significance of those who make Unicredit what it is,» the bank said.
Orcel also landed a coup in hiring Ping An's Jingle Pang as Unicredit's head of digital. She is widely admired by Europe's bankers for overseeing the digital transformation of the Chinese insurance and banking juggernaut since 2017. «No longer an add-on, this division will drive and input into every decision that we take,» Unicredit said.
Three-Year Absence
The set-up reunites Orcel with lieutenants he trusts, after nearly three years in limbo. He left UBS in autumn of 2018 for the top job at Santander, but later fell out with the Spanish bank and never took the job.
Unicredit, which Jean-Pierre Mustier ran for four years until a strategy dispute, hired Orcel earlier this year. A veteran Italian dealmaker who commands enormous loyalty, Orcel began his tenure by just scraping by in a vote over his 7.5 million euros ($9.1 million) in annual pay at the Italian bank.
