Iqbal Khan is 46, making him one of the “boys” on UBS’s executive board. Now he is to be brought into pole position as the next CEO.
That reports the US-Agentur Bloomberg. Accordingly, Khan would become the sole head of global wealth management at UBS.
He currently shares the job with Tom Naratil. The American is regarded as Khan’s mentor. According to Bloomberg, he would go into the 2nd rank, Khan would be the new king of the flagship division.
The Bloomberg speculation continues. The move would put Khan in a position to potentially take over from Hamers in the future.
However, Ralph Hamers, the CEO of UBS from Holland, has not been in office for long. Since 2020, one year shorter than Khan.
There is a criminal case against him in his homeland, it’s quiet there. UBS was always calm.
According to a UBS insider, the Bloomberg story on Khan’s next career move is “speculative”. However, there is a lot to be said for it.
His private banking co-partner, the aforementioned Naratil, is approaching retirement age. He and Khan get along, so Naratil could voluntarily leave the field.
And: Khan is Swiss. This is important because two foreigners are currently occupying the top jobs, with Colm Kelleher from the USA and CEO Hamers from an EU country.
One of the two top offices at the most important Swiss company should be in local hands.
If Khan were effectively sole head of wealth management, the ex-EY auditor would have shown amazing resilience.
The scandals in his vicinity had increased in recent years. When he was head of private banking at CS, he was responsible for asset management.
There, Alexander Greensill’s funds exploded in the spring of 2021. Dating back to Khan’s time, they could cost CS billions.
The espionage affair had also caused waves around the world. It led to arrests and criminal charges in autumn 2019, after all Tidjane Thiam had to give up his CS CEO job.
Khan survived that too. In October, 3 years ago, in the midst of the Spy turmoil, he started his fresh job at UBS – flying in from CS.
And another affair happened in Khan’s era with number 2. In Geneva, a CS consultant looked after rich Russians and Georgians.
The consultant was a scammer, the clients lost huge sums of money. CS was recently sentenced to hundreds of millions in damages in one case alone.
The entire wealth management of CS has fallen into the red in the current year. Under Khan it was the high-flyer division.
Khan knew the risks and jumped just before the bang, his critics say.
Everything went great under him, his successors screwed it up, say the supporters.
Khan’s bosses on the UBS board of directors seem to be leaning towards the latter opinion.
If Bloomberg is right, they’ll soon be naming the rising star as the next super boss.