Dixit Joshi: the new Credit Suisse CFO facing a daunting challenge
As daunting first weeks go, Dixit Joshi’s takes some beating.
After a weekend of damaging speculation on social media about the impending collapse of Credit Suisse, Joshi started as the bank’s chief financial officer on Monday with its share price plumbing new lows and a gauge of default risk spiralling higher.
The British-South Africa banker turned up to his first executive team meeting in Zurich that morning and quipped to colleagues: “You forgot to send me flowers — all I got were these gifts from the market. So much for my honeymoon period!”
It was after Barclays snapped up Lehman Brothers’ investment bank at the height of the financial crisis that Joshi left for Deutsche Bank. Defying the stereotype of bankers, Joshi is a teetotaller and life-long vegetarian, who was persuaded to go vegan by one of his three daughters.
“He’s a pretty button-down guy,” added del Missier. “He’s not the sort to be jumping up and down on tables at La Voile Rouge in Saint-Tropez.”
Van Steenis said that Joshi’s actuarial training and forensic interest in crunching numbers would leave him well-equipped for his new role.
Stepping up from a treasurer role to chief financial officer will require Joshi to take a broader view of the bank’s finances and assume greater responsibility for setting strategy. It is also much more visible to the outside world just as Credit Suisse is under the spotlight.
“He loves solving big, complex financial problems,” said van Steenis. “And they don’t come much bigger at the moment than Credit Suisse.”
Additional reporting by Olaf Storbeck
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Owen Walker
