The Swiss bank's former CEO remains a huge booster despite leaving six years ago and subsequently launching a Wall Street upstart. And why not? After all, the stint in Switzerland made him enormously wealthy.

Brady Dougan, who left the Zurich-based bank in 2015, is still a Wall Streeter: he is seeking to launch a digital investment bank – Exos. The U.S. native secured money from Qatar and Saudi Arabia for the new venture – which aimed to rival big houses for principal investments, investment banking and trading, including proprietary buying and selling.

He remains a huge booster of Credit Suisse (and probably a big stock-holder), defending the Swiss bank's risk practices in an interview with financial broadcaster «Bloomberg» after it lost as much as 4.4 billion Swiss francs ($4.7 billion) in the Archegos blow-up.

«Put It Into Perspective»

He specifically its risk controls, which had been overseen by Lara Warner until she resigned on Tuesday. «There is a lot of good DNA around risk management there as well,» Dougan said. He noted that Credit Suisse eschewed a Swiss government bailout in the 2008/09 crisis – it tapped Qatar instead for an emergency cash infusion.

The bank has «great businesses, great franchises, a lot of great people. Clearly you kind of have to put that in perspective,» he said.

Dougan mentioned neither that the Swiss bank paid the emirate 380 million Swiss francs ($406 million) every year in coupons on the crisis-era injection, until redeeming the instruments three years ago, nor that Switzerland's central bank ordered Credit Suisse to stop paying dividends mid-way through Dougan's tenure due to capital concerns.

Swiss Exuberance 

Anything else other than exuberance for Credit Suisse from the 61-year-old would be surprising: Dougan spent the entirety of his career for either Bankers Trust or CSFB, later Credit Suisse. Dougan's stint in Switzerland made him vastly wealthy.

He was famously paid nearly 90 million Swiss francs ($97 million) in one year by Credit Suisse, under pay plans from two separate years. Dougan was replaced by Tidjane Thiam in 2015 and set up Exos with several Wall Street associates two years later.