The former auditor has spent three decades with Morgan Stanley, an American investment giant. During the financial crisis, he rocked the boat as chief financial officer.

Colm Kelleher will succeed Axel Weber as its next chairman of the board of directors of UBS. If UBS primary goal is to expand digital wealth management to million dollars clients in the US, then 64-year-old Irishman is the right choice. After all, after starting out as a chartered accountant at Arthur Andersen, the man can look back on a three-decade career at the American investment and asset management bank Morgan Stanley.

During this time, the Wall Street veteran has made it from advising institutional clients to managing the capital markets division. He then served as President of Morgan Stanley from January 2016 to June 2019. In this context, he quickly took on the role of enforcer as number 2, who implemented the strategy laid down by the more analytical boss James Gorman. After all, he had advanced in the trading business and understood risk management, which the former McKinsey advisor and asset management boss was less familiar with. It is said that Kelleher shaped the undisciplined and error-prone investment bank into a more stable financial services giant.

Kelleher “has a deep understanding of the global banking landscape,” explains UBS, and “his more than 30 years of banking leadership experience and excellent relationships around the world make Colm an ideal candidate for UBS.” That is probably true from a technical point of view.

Raised one of nine siblings in the Irish county of Cork, the Oxford University graduate began working as a dealer in London for Morgan Stanley in 1989; this in the area of ​​fixed income securities before he finally took over responsibility for the investment bank and the trading business. From 2016, he headed the company’s two largest divisions, after having also taken on responsibility for retail brokerage.

Kelleher has experience in crisis management. After all, from October 2007 to December 2009 he acted as chief financial officer and as co-head of corporate strategy. In this role, he made a significant contribution to steering the company through the turmoil of the financial crisis by preserving capital and liquidity in times of enormous market turmoil and obviously using them in the right places.

After all, Morgan Stanley has developed dynamically since the crisis in an extremely favorable environment and is now considered to be one of the more robust market participants – if that can be said of an industry that usually operates with high stakes. Kelleher helped Morgan Stanley’s investment bank restore customer confidence after hedge funds withdrew funds during the crash. He trimmed his formerly large positions in fixed income trading while attempting to mimic the company’s success in electronic stock trading.

His competitive spirit was often evident in confrontations with competitors, such as Goldman Sachs. In comments at a conference hosted by the rival company in 2013, Kelleher spoke of the “joy” he felt at his company Goldman overtook Goldman in stock trading proceeds, and he joked with the prognosis that Morgan Stanley would catch up with Goldman in advisory revenues because “we’re just the nicer guys.”

The southern Irish provincial man retired as President June 2019 of Morgan Stanley after having worked for the company in various roles in Europe, Asia and North America over the course of his career.

He has since served as Senior Advisor to Morgan Stanley and Director of the Norfolk Southern Committee. UBS will soon benefit from his wealth of experience.

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