Barclays Bank three years ago charged a top shot in Swiss banking with the task to create a private-banking unit in Zurich. Now, the head of the Zurich office has suddenly left, research by finews.ch showed and which was confirmed by Barclays in Switzerland.

Martina Bigliardi Möhr (pictured) started at Britain's second-largest bank three years ago. Her task: to build from scratch a private banking unit in Switzerland's financial heart, as reported by finews.ch. Previously at Clariden-Leu, she took a team from the Credit Suisse subsidiary with her to help her achieve her task. Later, bankers from UBS, Credit Suisse and HSBC joined them.

With the team assembled, Bigliardi started hunting rich clients from Switzerland, the U.K. and the rest of Europe, as well as Russia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Here to Stay

The star banker has long experience with customers from Russia and Israel. While other foreign banks threw in the towel, Barclays always insisted it was here to stay.

But now, Bigliardi has left the company. Barclays Bank (Suisse) confirmed the research by finews.ch. The banker left already in July.

Inconvenient Timing

The departure of the key person at the private-banking unit in Switzerland is highly inconvenient for the banking giant. After several changes in the management (finews.ch reported here and there), the new head of Switzerland, James Buchanan-Michaelson (pictured below) announced an expansion of private banking in the home of companies such as Lombard Odier, Julius Baer and Bank Vontobel.

Buchanan-Michaelson, who joined Barclays from Coutts International, went as far as announcing his intention to take over rival private banks.

With the departure of Bigliardi, Buchanan-Michaelson now has to focus on plugging the holes in the system and on preventing a further leakage of key personnel.

It is not yet known where Bigliardi will move. At Clariden Leu, the private banker was responsible for the wealth management in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe as well as Israel.

Before joining Clariden Leu, Bigliardi had been at UBS for 25 years, in leading positions at International Corporate Banking, Project Finance, and International Wealth Management. Before her departure she worked as business sector head covering the markets in Russia, central and eastern Europe, Great Britain, Germany and Austria.