Sergio Pietro Ermotti (born 11 May 1960) is a Swiss manager and former

investment banker Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...

. In April 2021, Ermotti was elected Chairman of

Swiss Re Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd,
Swiss Re. Retrieved on 18 January 2011. "Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd ("Swiss Re") ...

, one of the world's largest

reinsurance Reinsurance is insurance that an insurance company purchases from another insurance company to insulate itself (at least in part) from the risk of a major claims event. With reinsurance, the company passes on ("cedes") some part of its own ins ...

companies, succeeding Walter Kielholz. He was the Group

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

(CEO) of

UBS Group AG UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

from November 2011 to October 2020. Prior to this, he was at UniCredit Group, serving as Head of the Markets & Investment Banking Division as of December 2005 and, from 2007 to 2010, as Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer responsible for Corporate and Investment Banking and Private Banking. Previously, from 1987 until 2003, he was with Merrill Lynch & Co. in several roles including Member of the Executive Management Committee for Global Markets & Investment Banking since 2001. Ermotti took over as Group CEO at UBS after the 2011 rogue trader scandal, implementing strict corporate policies governing community standards. He initiated a major restructuring of the bank, redefining strategy, putting wealth management and Swiss business at its centre, alongside asset management and a more focused and capital-light investment banking. Leading the firm for nearly a decade, he was the longest serving head of UBS. In February 2020,

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swi ...

announced that

Ralph Hamers Ralph Adrianus Joseph Gerardus Hamers (born 25 May 1966) is a Dutch businessman who is the UBS Group CEO. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Dutch bank ING Group from October 2013 until June 2020. Early life Ralph Hamers was born on 25 ...

, CEO of

ING Group The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banki ...

, would be succeeding Sergio Ermotti as Group CEO on 1 November. It has been speculated that he might transition into

Swiss politics Switzerland is a semi-direct democratic federal republic. The federal legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly: the National Council and the Council of States. The Federal Council holds the executive po ...

after his career in banking. He ruled out entering select political races for the Bundesrat stating that he was "not a politician". In addition to English, Ermotti speaks Italian, German, and French fluently.

Early life and education

Sergio Pietro Ermotti was born on 11 May 1960 in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label= Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Lugano has a populat ...

, Switzerland, an Italian-speaking city. After secondary school he pursued aspirations of being a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

or sports teacher. Before turning 18 and enrolling in college to fulfill these aspirations, Ermotti decided to fill his time with an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

at the Cornèr Bank in Lugano to "get up to speed with accounting, finance, and so on".. Fascinated by foreign exchange trading, he started a training program in the Securities Department of the bank. He received a Swiss federal banking expert

diploma A diploma is a document awarded by an educational institution (such as a college or university) testifying the recipient has graduated by successfully completing their courses of studies. Historically, it has also referred to a charter or offici ...

and, later in his banking career, graduated from the Advanced Management Program at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Banking career

After his apprenticeship at the Cornèr Bank, Ermotti was later promoted to trading. In 1986, Ermotti moved to

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

in Zurich where he traded equity-linked products and later served as its Resident Vice President. In 1987, he went on to the Swiss office of the US investment bank

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...

in Zurich, and stayed with the bank for 16 years. He started with holding various positions in equity derivatives and

capital markets A capital market is a financial market in which long-term debt (over a year) or equity-backed securities are bought and sold, in contrast to a money market where short-term debt is bought and sold. Capital markets channel the wealth of savers ...

, and contributed to the expansion of the capital market business of the bank in Switzerland. In 1993, he was promoted to the position of Managing Director and moved to London being in charge of the European equity derivatives unit. Three years later, in 1996, Ermotti relocated to New York, as a head of global derivatives trading where he also worked after his promotion to co-head of global equity markets and a member of the executive management committee for global markets & investment banking at Merrill Lynch. He joined the Italian bank

UniCredit UniCredit S.p.A. is an international banking group headquartered in Milan. It is Italy's only systemically important bank (according to the list provided by the Financial Stability Board in 2022) and the world's 34th largest by assets. It was fo ...

in Milan in December 2005 as head of markets & investment banking after UniCredit had taken over German bank, ''

HypoVereinsbank UniCredit Bank AG, better known under its brand name HypoVereinsbank (HVB), is the fifth-largest of the German financial institutions, ranked according to its total assets, and the fourth-largest bank in Germany according to the number of its e ...

'' (HVB). From 2007, he was

's Deputy Chief Executive Officer with responsibility for the strategic business area, corporate and investment banking and private banking. When he was not offered the CEO position after the resignation of the then CEO Alessandro Profumo, he left Unicredit in October 2010. Ermotti was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive of

's Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) group, and became a member of the Group

Executive Board A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

in April 2011. He was appointed interim Group CEO in September 2011, and permanently in November 2011. In response to the

2011 UBS rogue trader scandal The 2011 UBS rogue trader scandal caused a loss of over US$2 billion at Swiss bank UBS, as a result of unauthorized trading performed by Kweku Adoboli, a director of the bank's Global Synthetic Equities Trading team in London in early September 2 ...

, Ermotti sent an internal memo stating: "I want to make clear that no one's personal interest nor any amount of revenue is worth more than the bank's reputation". Because of his new responsibility as CEO, he resigned from his position as a president of

Darwin Airline Darwin Airline SA was a Swiss regional airline with its head office in Bioggio, Lugano flying under the brand name Adria Airways Switzerland. It operated scheduled domestic and international services in some western European countries. It used ...

in 2011. Ermotti was a member of the board at the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

between September 2008 and July 2013. In 2012, he tapped a colleague from Merrill Lynch, Andrea Orcel, to lead UBS's investment banking arm, eventually assisting him in navigating the 2013 Libor trading scandal, a major

corporate restructuring Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs. Other reasons ...

, and a major expansion of

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspec ...

(M&A) activity. When UBS AG was converted into a holding company in 2014, Ermotti was elected Group CEO of UBS Group AG. In 2015, the Swiss newspaper ''

Schweiz am Sonntag The Swiss ''Schweiz am Sonntag'' () was a German-language weekly newspaper, published on Sundays with the main circulation areas being the Swiss Plateau and southeastern Switzerland. History In the autumn of 2007, the newspaper was founded by A ...

'' named him as the most successful manager of a company listed on the

Swiss Market Index The Swiss Market Index (SMI) is Switzerland's blue-chip stock market index, which makes it the most followed in the country. It is made up of 20 of the largest and most liquid Swiss Performance Index (SPI) stocks. As a price index, the SMI is ...

. His salary in fiscal year 2017 was estimated to be US$14.9 million. In February 2020

announced that

CEO of

would be succeeding Sergio Ermotti as CEO on 1 November.

Chairmanships

In March 2020,

Swiss Re Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd,
Swiss Re. Retrieved on 18 January 2011. "Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd ("Swiss Re") ...

, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, nominated Sergio P. Ermotti for election to Swiss Re's board of directors and announced its intention to onboard him as its next chairman, succeeding Walter Kielholz in 2021. Sergio Ermotti is also a board member (lead non-executive director) of Ermenegildo Zegna N.V.

Personal life

Ermotti is married with two children. His favorite movies are

George Roy Hill George Roy Hill (December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film director. He is most noted for directing such films as ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' (1969) and ''The Sting'' (1973), both starring Paul Newman and Robert Re ...

's ''

The Sting ''The Sting'' is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss ( Robert Shaw).'' Variety'' film review; December 12, 1973, pag ...

'' and

Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...

's ''

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest may refer to: * ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey * ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (play), a 1963 stage adaptation of the novel starring Kirk Douglas * ''One Flew Over the ...

.''He supports the Swiss football club FC Lugano and the Italian football club,

A.C. Milan Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Association football, football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 ...

. Ermotti was challenged by

Marc Walder Marc Walder (born 19 August 1965) is a Swiss journalist, media executive and former professional tennis player. He is CEO and Managing Partner of Ringier and Chairman of the Group Executive Board. Life Walder was a professional tennis player on ...

, CEO of Swiss media company

Ringier Ringier AG is a media group in Switzerland, founded in 1833 in Zofingen and based in Zürich. The current strategy is based not only on media but also on e-commerce and entertainment. It has a yearly income of approximately 1000 million CHF an ...

and Gianluigi Bianchi, managing partner for Europe of Wealth-X to undertake the

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyo ...

References

External links

CV Sergio Ermotti on Swiss Re website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ermotti, Sergio Living people 1960 births Swiss bankers Citigroup employees Swiss business executives Swiss chief executives Chief executives in the finance industry Bank presidents and chief executive officers