A pedestrian passes a UBS Group branch in Zurich, Switzerland. — Bloomberg
ZURICH: UBS said on Thursday Rob Karofsky would become head of the Americas and co-president of global wealth management with Iqbal Khan, who will take charge of the Asia-Pacific region as part of a shake-up of the Swiss bank's executive board.
Khan will relocate to Asia to assume the new role from Sept. 1. Khan and Karofsky are both seen as candidates to succeed UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti when he steps down, which the bank has indicated could take place by early 2027.
Damian Vogel has been appointed Chief Risk Officer and will take over from Christian Bluhm, as part of a series of changes the bank is putting into effect from July 1.
Ermotti said in a statement the appointments put "even more emphasis on our long-term priorities and growth prospects, particularly in the Americas and Asia-Pacific."
According to a recent media report, Ermotti has rejected appointing an outsider as successor and intends to present internal candidates as he did when he last left UBS in 2020.
"Our goal is to really increase dramatically the chances that we can have an internal candidate," Ermotti told Reuters last month in an interview.
Former Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Koerner is to retire from the bank later this year, the bank said.
The President of UBS Americas, Naureen Hassan, is to step down effective July 1.
The bank also announced George Athanasopoulos and Marco Valla as investment bank co-presidents.
UBS, which is in the midst of integrating its longtime rival, Credit Suisse, made the announcements ahead of the merger of the main parent companies, scheduled to be legally completed on Friday.
That is expected to allow the Swiss bank to get started with trickier stages of the integration such as combining IT systems, migrating clients from Credit Suisse and cutting the enlarged banks' workforce of more than 110,000. - Reuters
