Deep down in the UBS MD list

Late last week, UBS announced its managing directors for 2026. They were not so many: 155 people there were promoted, down from 208 in the crazy days of 2021. 

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In the preamble to this year's list, UBS said the geographic dispersal of its new MDs reflected its regional growth ambitions. Accordingly, while 43 people in the new UBS MD class are in Switzerland, 40 are in Asia, and only 36 are each in the Americas and Europe. 

Who were they? We've belatedly added the full list below. Here, too, is some detail.

UBS promoted an array of AI experts 

We are in an AI age and UBS has been promoting its AI people. Its promotions include Antoine Bechault in Switzerland, who says he's "transforming group finance through AI driven strategy," Umish Mohite, the asset management CTO lead for cloud and AI, and Musa Parmaksiz who is found in the "AI Center of Excellence."

Tangentially, UBS also promoted Sameer Bakshi, CEO of the finance function where the AI strategy is being implemented. 

UBS promoted a few financial sponsors and leveraged finance bankers

Last summer UBS reorganised its financial sponsors and M&A teams into a single group while surprisingly (to some) letting none of its financial sponsors bankers go. 

Last week, UBS promoted some more sponsors bankers in the form of Darren Kirke in Australia, and Andrew Emmett and Tomas Dicpinigaitis in New York.

Also promoted was Kanika Chaudhry in leveraged debt capital markets in London. And John Yiannoullou, a former financing banker who's now global banking COO for the Americas.

UBS promoted some M&A loyalists 

Various M&A bankers were promoted alongside financial sponsors bankers. Many have been at the Swiss bank for years.

In London, they included Aamer Bhatti a who's been there since 2019 after joining from Warwick Business School, and Meera Sheff, who's been there since 2011. In the US, they included Whitney Mikell, a real estate, lodging and leisure banker who joined in 2012.  

We didn't spy many ex-Credit Suisse bankers among the new MDs, except for Emil Strand, who appeared in the New York industrials group via Credit Suisse in 2023. 

UBS promoted ahead of the hoped-for recovery in IPOs

2025 was not a good year for IPOs but UBS nonetheless promoted Clara Comellini in EMEA equity capital markets, plus Marco Guarino, its head of EMEA equity syndicate and Rajan Sharma, its head of syndicate in Asia. Peter Castoro, the New York based head of healthcare ECM, who was hired from JPMorgan last August, is on the list too.

A scattering of equity researchers made cut, including Josh Spector, a chemicals researcher in New York and Daniel Major, a metals and mining analyst in London. Contrary to speculation by some, Rory McKenzie, head of businesses services research, wasn't promoted. McKenzie's wife, Helen Brand is the deputy head of EMEA research, but McKenzie has an entirely separate reporting line. 

UBS promoted various Asian bankers 

UBS's Asian bankers are understood to have received its highest bonus increases this year. Its recent Asia-based MD promotions include Fabrice Delacroix, the head of Asian renewables banking, Chaoxiang Jia in Hong Kong and Tra Zboinski, the head of Vietnam coverage.  

UBS promoted its head of US ETF trading and senior quants

In equities, the promotions include Kudzai Ndondo, the head of Americas EFT trading, Ciprian Ticula, the head of US equity quants and Davide Montoni, the head of Americas quantitative investment strategies and equity derivative sales. In Europe, UBS promoted François-Xavier Lefèvre, its EMEA head of equity derivative flow sales.

In China UBS promoted Jun Yin, its Shanghai-based head of electronic trading.

Where were the promotions in fixed income trading?

UBS MD promotions seemed most sparse in fixed income sales and trading. Andrew Sugden in FX options trading was promoted, as was Paul Buttenmueller, the Singapore-based global head of eFX trading.

However, we didn't see any promotions on the London rates desk, which has lost various people and doesn't seem inclined to replace them internally. "Everyone is too junior or too new," observes one insider.

All the new UBS MDs:

Isaac Affejee

Steven Au

Benjamin Baevsky

Sameer Bakshi

Saurav Banerjee

Juan Banet

Daniel Bender

Danielle Bereaux

Antoine Beuchat

Nagaraj Bhat

Aamer Bhatti

Aymen Boukhari

Andre Braga

Alessandro Brun del Re

Paul Buttenmueller

Oliver Caesmann

Carina Caminada Aja Vicente

Peter Castoro

Guilherme Ceneviva

Geoffrey Centner

Sebastien Cerbourg

Ignacio Cerezo

Brian Chau

Kanika Chaudhry

Pat Chen

Julien Chuard

Claudio Cina

Clara Comellini

Charlie Daish

Joseph D'Amico

Abhi Dave

Michael Davis

Fabrice Delacroix

Tomas Dicpinigaitis

Stephen Donnelly

Robert Donnenfeld

Jeremy Downes

Oliver Dürig

James Edwards

Jochen Elischberger

Andrew Emmett

Candy Fagence

Markus Feller

Jeff Fridberg

Katja Fuchs Mtwebana

Davide Gasparini

Victoria Goldsmith

Paul Gong

Florian Wolff Görlich

Chris Gray

Marco Guarino

Amit Gupta

Kapil Gupta

Brian Hans

Oskar Heini

Laurie Hershenov

Don Hill

Lars Hofer

Adrien Israel

Dominic Jäggi

Richard James

Chaoxiang Jia

Sandeep Kakani

Alec Kane

Darren Kirke

Neeraj Kumar

Jenny Kurz

Koon Ming Lee

May Lee

Henry Lee

François-Xavier Lefèvre

Trupti Lele-Prabhune

Carman Leung

Sunny Lin

Petra Majdik

Daniel Major

Stathis Mallouchos

Olga Martynova

Marisa McCullough

Peter McNulty

Whitney Mikell

Umesh Mohite

Davide Montoni

Matthew Morris

Brendan Mulheron

Christian Müttel

Ryosuke Nakatomi

Manik Narain

Kudzai Ndondo

Ben Nicholls

Norihisa Ohata

Tom Pan

Srinivas Pandeti

Claudia Panseri

Musa Parmaksiz

Manish Parmar

Ryan Pehush

Sylvain Perret

Marcel Peter

Branimir Petranovic

Fabian Plenzat

Shahela Rahman

Sarah Randall

Robert Rempfler

Volker Riemer

Francois Rowell

Neil Roxburgh

Pascal Rugel

Chloe Sampson

Mili Sanganee

Clara Sapoznik

Christoph Schlachter

Mathias Schölzel

Beat Schumacher

Ranjan Sharma

Meera Sheth

Karen Shih

George Smith

Alvin Soh

Samuel Song

Bob Sorrentino

Luca Spadafora

Joshua Spector

Maria Stanojlovic

Shona Stone

Emil Strand

Andrew Sugden

Michael Suwald

Yuya Suzuki

Alexander Tan

Raelene Tan

Simon Taylor

Takouhi Tchertchian

Sam Thomas

Ciprian Ticula

Patrick Tobler

Tirawadi Towon

Dean Turner

Matthias W. Uhl

Koushik Vaidya

Ashok Vakakulu Murthy

Oliver van de Giessen

Kristina von Fuchs

Miroslav Wagenhofer

Remo Waller

Marina Weilenmann

Philipp Wildhaber

Daniel Wyss

Winston Yap

John Yiannoullou

Jun Yin

Stanley Yu

Tra Zboinski

Franziska Zerhusen

Bryan Zhang

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