Sergio Pietro Ermotti was born in Lugano, Switzerland. He is a Swiss investment banker and former stock trader. In April 2021, Ermotti was elected chairman of Swiss Re, the world's largest reinsurer, less than six months after leaving UBS.
«In my new role, I look forward to advocating for Switzerland as an attractive location for the insurance industry,» the 60-year-old Ticino native told shareholders in an annual meeting held online. Insurance represents as much of Swiss gross domestic product as Switzerland's heavyweight banking sector, and also a more consistent one.
Switzerland is the world's third-largest location for reinsurance, Ermotti said – and he plans to use his new job to help make sure it stays that way. «That is why Swiss Re is actively engaged in ensuring that the Swiss financial center remains attractive and internationally competitive» in terms of framework conditions, the banker-turned-overseer said.
Ermotti remains a big UBS investor, with more than 4 million shares to his name (it translates to less than 0.3 percent of voting rights over the Swiss giant) – likely not including a big personal bet. His extracurricular activities include chairing the family's Lugano-based Fondazione Ermotti and serving on the Swiss-American chamber of commerce's board.
Ermotti was a member of the board at the London Stock Exchange between September 2008 and July 2013. In 2012, he tapped a colleague from Merrill Lynch, Andrea Orcel, to lead UBS's investment banking arm, eventually assisting him in navigating the 2013 Libor trading scandal, a major corporate restructuring, and a major expansion of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity. In November 2014, he became the CEO for UBS Group AG permanently. In 2015, the Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag named him as the most successful manager of a company listed on the Swiss Market Index.
While at UBS, he was widely viewed as sincere in his concern for Switzerland and its financial center when commenting on Swiss political matters of economic and business relevance, like immigration. Ermotti, who began his career in finance as an apprentice at Cornèr Bank in Lugano in 1975, is also on the board of the Global Apprenticeship Network – and a SPAC backer. Previously he also served as the deputy chief executive for Italian bank UniCredit, from 2007 to 2010 in Milan, where he was responsible for the strategic business areas of Corporate and Investment Banking, and Private Banking.
He is also Chairman of Investindustrial Acquisition Corporation since January 2021. In addition, Sergio Ermotti was among the winners of the Executive Award Lugano that took place in October 2021.
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