153: Colm Kelleher, Chairman of UBS & Former President of Morgan Stanley, Discusses Culture, Leadership, Surviving the Great Financial Crisis and UBS Today

Money Maze Podcast

Business, Investing, Management, News, Business News

4.8 • 216 Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an interview we had especially looked forward to, and with the Credit Suisse acquisition behind us, the MMP went to Zurich to talk to Colm Kelleher.

Described as one of the most influential and capable banking executives of the last several decades, he has been dubbed by the FT as 'Europe’s most powerful banker'. As Chairman of the UBS board, he helps manage an organisation with approximately $5.7 trillion in assets, employing 112,000 people.

After discussing the early forces that shaped him, he explains why he realised US banks were better placed to outgun their UK rivals, why he joined Morgan Stanley, and the journey to CFO and President. He discusses the brutal intensity of fighting to keep Morgan Stanley alive from following Lehman, and the emotional scars it left.

Colm describes the attraction of UBS, the preparation that made the Credit Suisse deal work in such an orderly manner as well as the business, the brand, and its position today.

He explains what culture means to him, Europe’s position in financial services, disintermediation, and the likely shape of banking going forward and why banks shouldn’t seek to be entrepreneurial.

The Money Maze Podcast is kindly sponsored by Schroders, IFM Investors and the World Gold Council.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Wall Street Sheport in the MoneyMays podcast. I'm Simon Brewer and along with my co-founder, Will Campion.
0:22.3	We created this show in 2020 to explore and unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the investment and business worlds. episodes are available on audio via our YouTube platforms and on video via our YouTube channel and we're
0:46.9	active on all major social media platforms to stay up to date with every episode please do sign up to our
0:53.0	newsletter at money mazepodcast.com.
0:56.0	And we'd like to thank you for listening.
0:57.7	If we could ask one favour, we'd love you to tell a friend or colleague about us.
1:02.8	Thank you.
1:04.7	In 1991, employees of Morgan Stanley were informed of a visionary management decision to relocate from the West End to a partially constructed Canary Wharf.
1:15.5	We were told that we were the pioneers, one of two international banks moving there,
1:19.5	and the irony in today's conversation being that the other pioneer bank moving to Cabot Square Canary Wharf was none other than Credit Suisse.
1:29.2	No tube extension had been built.
1:34.8	There was only one Dockland's Light Railway. Buses, or for those of us who drove, we descended into the concrete bowels of this soulless complex and were missing the West End acutely.
1:40.2	Although I arrived by seven o'clock every day, there was always one car parked well ahead of me.
1:45.4	Its engine no longer warm, because its owner and our guest today would already have been at his desk
1:50.3	for some time. Such work ethic is just one of the reasons he became CFO and president of Morgan
1:55.5	Stanley, and today is chairman of UBS. One of the most influential and capable of banking executives of the last
2:01.8	several decades, dubbed by the F.T. as Europe's most powerful banker. And a former colleague,
2:06.9	Rob Rooney, who became CEO of Morgansfani International, said, no one else I met matched him for
2:11.8	the relationships he cultivated, his understanding of markets and risk, developing strategy and assessing, unlike most others,
2:20.7	how to work through the noise and nonsense.
2:23.2	He's truly one of the great athletes of financial services.
2:26.6	Colin Keller, welcome to the Moneybase podcast.
	...

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