Ex-Credit Suisse Chairman Starts Cyber Venture
The former chairman of Credit Suisse is partnering in a new cyber venture, finews.asia has learned.
After leaving Credit Suisse three months ago, Urs Rohner relinquished all his finance-related mandates, including those at the Institute of International Finance and European Banking Group.
He left behind him a bank on its knees and became a glaring example of incompetence and greed in the financial sector, as finews.com wrote in May, drawing criticism from the otherwise discreet and reserved Swiss banking community.
Since then, he has taken a job advising Investcorp, a $35-billion, Bahrain-based asset manager, after quietly taking up office space in Zurich’s upscale Seefeld neighborhood with his one-man freelancing firm (U. Rohner & Co. AG).
From Financial to Tech Services
Rohner is also a founding partner in Vega Cyber Associates, a Zug-based limited company set up earlier this year for «technology services and development of all types of products for technology and security». Rohner’s name doesn’t appear in the commercial register for Vega.
The company’s sole managerial representative is Pascal Oehri, an associate at white-collar law firm Wenger & Vieli. It isn’t clear what Vega, which was set up with just 100,000 Swiss francs ($110,000) in capital, plans to do exactly. Oehri didn’t respond to a request for comment, while Rohner couldn’t be reached.
Digital Proponent
Rohner's dip into the cybersecurity world comes as no surprise. He was an early, fierce proponent of digitization while at Credit Suisse. The Swiss bank launched CSX, a hybrid between online start-up financial apps and a bank branch, late in his tenure. That was meant as a response to the buzz around international apps such as Revolut as well as to homegrown projects such as Neon or Yuh.
