Gandhi will move to Hong Kong this summer and continue in his existing role as head of the global financial institutions group (FIG). Gandhi will continue to oversee business and maintain key client relationships in the Americas but is expected to devote a significant portion of his time to Asia and Europe.
Gandhi will continue to report to Jim Amine, Marc Granetz and the heads of global securities. Amine was appointed as co-head of global investment banking and head of global markets solutions in February this year. He is based in London. Granetz is co-head of global investment banking and head of M&A, based in New York.
In an internal memo, Credit Suisse termed the move ôpart of its ongoing commitment to transfer talented bankers to other regionsö and said further that Asia-Pacific will benefit greatly from having a banker on the ground with Vikram's experience and client relationships. The Swiss bank also said: ôGlobal talent transfers are increasingly important for us to continue our momentumö.
Gandhi is quite new to Credit Suisse. He joined the bank in New York in April 2005 as head of global FIG, moving from Morgan Stanley where he was co-head of FIG for two years prior to that. Gandhi had been with Morgan Stanley since 1995. He served as president of Morgan Stanley India and vice-chairman of the investment bankÆs Indian joint venture JM Morgan Stanley from 1997 until 1999. In January 2000 Gandhi returned to the US as chief operating officer of Morgan StanleyÆs global e-commerce steering committee and then in 2001 took on the role of head of strategy for the institutional securities business.
Credit Suisse is following a trend which seems set to become well-established. In March 2008 Rabobank entrusted Donal Galvin, head of Asia-Pacific financial markets, with global responsibility for the bank's equity and fund derivatives business. Also in March, Deutsche Bank relocated Noreddine Sebti, its global head of equity trading, to Asia from New York to be responsible for the full range of the bank's customer-facing equity business, including cash equities, derivatives capabilities such as synthetic access to local markets, exotics and flow, illiquid equity derivatives trading and financing.
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