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Colm Kelleher, Europe's 'most powerful banker': culture is key

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Colm Kelleher, chairman of UBS, talked at Saïd Business School this week about his career, the Swiss bank's take over of rival Credit Suisse - and culture.

Corporate culture is central to success, according to Europe’s ‘most powerful banker’ - Colm Kelleher, the chairman of the UBS board, and an Oxford alumnus.

He was in conversation in Oxford Saïd’s Nelson Mandela lecture theatre, in front of an audience including his former contemporaries from Oriel College, Oxford Saïd students and Dean Soumitra Dutta.

Mr Kelleher maintained, his career in banking had been influenced by the positive culture he had found at Morgan Stanley, his corporate home for some 32 years, and had enabled his 45-year career in finance – and the survival of the institution. But, he pointed out, negative cultures had the opposite impact on other institutions.

Mr Kelleher insisted, Morgan Stanley’s positive culture helped it weather the 2008 financial crisis. But, he said, arrogant and aggressive cultures served to undermine certain other institutions which had failed. 

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UBS took over its Swiss counterpart, Credit Suisse, in March last year in the ‘most complicated merger in banking history’. According to Mr Kelleher, UBS had been concerned about cultural contamination, but had found very positive culture in its rival Swiss institution, with problems being focused in US trading operations.

Mr Kelleher’s comments come just a month after the UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti paid a visit to Oxford Saïd, where he talked about the takeover for the new MBA cohort.

Introducing Mr Kelleher yesterday, though, Lord Mendoza, the Provost of Oriel College, described his former contemporary (who took Modern History at Oriel in the 1970s) as a ‘titan’ of finance.

The banker responded modestly, pointing out that Oxford had made a ‘huge difference’ in his life and to his career in finance. Although he had not thought initially of banking, it was where the highest salaries were on offer, Mr Kelleher said. 

When I started work in the City, it was full of red faced people who drank a lot at lunchtime...Americans did not drink at lunchtime.

Colm Kelleher

Chairman, Board of Directors UBS Group.

He saw the big City names of his early days disappear, such as Wedd Durlacher (later folded into the now defunct BZW) and SG Warburg (which eventually was enveloped into UBS). But Mr Kelleher was attracted by the culture of new arrival Morgan Stanley. It was to prove a wise choice. Mr Kelleher maintained, he also benefited from good luck – but insisted there is no substitute for ‘hard work’.

‘There is no easy answer,’ Mr Kelleher said simply, when asked about the paths to success. But, encouragingly for careers in banking, he said, ‘it is fascinating, doing deals’.

The financial industry veteran hit back at concerns over the possible impact of Artificial Intelligence and non-traditional actors in the finance space. Mr Kelleher insisted: ‘Technology in banking only ever helped banking.’

And he emphasised the highly-regulated market, in which institutions such as UBS operate, is not affected by risks such as cryptocurrencies – since regulations mean they are not allowed to become involved.

‘We are always looking for system risk, though,’ Mr Kelleher insisted. But he maintained: ‘Banks evolve. They are innovation labs.’

Read about the Oxford Bank Governance programme.