Following his coup in attracting a new team to expand the presence of Julius Baer in Bern, the Swiss head of the private bank has announced more personnel changes aimed at delivering on his promise to grow in the home market.

Barend Fruithof joined Julius Baer with the promise to strengthen the bank in the previously neglected home market. The Swiss boss is now taking action to deliver on this promise, according to a statement from the bank Thursday.

As exclusively reported by finews.ch, Fruithof achieved a coup in Bern by poaching an 11-person private banking team from Valiant bank. Among the team is Jean-Claude Mariethod, former deputy CEO of Valiant private bank.

Mariethod taking over from Heritier

Mariethod will continue to lead the team Julius Baer, taking over management of the Bern location from Patrick Heritier, as well as being appointed head of the smaller Swiss locations from 2017. Heritier will transfer to a senior management function within the bank, the statement said, without giving further details.

Fruithof is introducing more changes in French-speaking Switzerland. In August, Yassine Ben Hamida will take over the reins from Gabriele Odone at the Geneva office. Odone will stay at the bank in a senior management role.

From Credit Suisse

Ben Hamida is moving to Julius Baer from Credit Suisse. Most recently he was head of coverage emerging markets for financial institutions and transaction banking at the bank.

Lucerne is another location selected for new management. Bernard Kobler, former CEO of Luzerner Kantonalbank has been at the helm in Lucerne until recently.

Kobler is gone

Now it seems Kobler has to clear his desk and Gieri Giger will take over leadership in central Switzerland. Giger has led the Zug branch for the past nine years and will continue to do so.

All these personnel changes serve the goal of achieving sustainable growth in the home market, Fruithof said in the statement.

He is now setting into motion what he announced in an interview with finews.ch. The regional heads will be granted more responsibility, and assessed more on their performance, Fruithof said in February.

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