Daniel Siepmann

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Company

Credit Suisse Fund Services - Luxembourg

 

Position

Chief Executive Officer

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A sporting life

 

Daniel Siepmann, CEO of Credit Suisse Fund Services in Luxembourg, says his favourite place on weekends is on the golf course – so much so that his ambition is to finish up running one after retirement. But perhaps somewhere sunnier.

 

Career orientation

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Daniel Siepmann has spent nearly a quarter-century in the banking and investment industries in his native Cologne, in Zurich and since 2014 as CEO of Credit Suisse Fund Services (Luxembourg). But sport has been as important a thread running through his life. As a boy, he says, hockey (and skiing) was “everything” – he was good enough a hockey player to make it to Germany’s first division, but at 19 he realised he would not be a first-choice starter and took up golf instead. At the same time, the young Siepmann was finding his career orientation: he considered architecture – still a keen area of interest – as well as becoming a doctor or an auditor.

 

Fund expertise

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He trained as a banker with Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie, where he spent the first seven years of his career, while taking master degrees in business administration and economics at the University of Cologne. He added a doctorate at Fribourg in Switzerland after moving to Zurich to join the local subsidiary of a German bank. Siepmann then spent more than five years

as a senior management consultant with BearingPoint, the former Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, then four-and-a-half as head of business technology for Julius Baer’s European asset management business before joining Credit Suisse in 2008. In recent years his involvement with the fund sector and with Luxembourg has grown, including building a fund hub in the grand duchy for other Credit Suisse domiciles, now being close to 350 bln CHF assets under administration. In 2012 he joined the board of the Luxembourg subsidiary as part of his role as head of fund operations within the bank’s investor services business, where he is CEO since 2014.

 

Life lessons on the golf course

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Siepmann makes the most out of his time outside the office, too, whether travelling (South Africa, New York and Italy are favorite places), reading Thomas Mann, or on the ski slopes. He says: “I like the speed and freedom to choose your direction – there’s nothing better than being up in the mountains, looking far into the distance.” He also goes jogging to keep his mind fresh and creative. And in the far future he sees himself less in the financial sector but running a private business such as a golf club, perhaps in South Africa to escape the grey and foggy European autumn and winter. According to Siepmann, golf offers not only insights into the personalities of one’s playing partners but important life lessons. “You simply have to play the ball as it lies,” he says. “It makes no sense to argue – you just learn from it, adapt your strategy and try again on the next tee.” He is already looking forward to the day he can take his young daughter to the golf course.

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Facts & Figures

 

 

• Birthday: 30. November 1967

• Place of birth: Cologne, Germany

• Nationality: German and Swiss

• Children: 1 daughter (born 2015)

• Languages: German, English (and a little bit of French)

• Hobbies: Golf, Running, Travelling, Design and Architecture
   

• MY FAVOURITE

• Cities: Zurich, Lenzerheide, Cologne, New York, Lake Como

• Place: A golf course

• Book: Thomas Mann

• Restaurants: Cantinetta Antinori & Casa Aurelio (Zurich), Trattoria Il Riccio & Brasserie Kirchberg (Luxembourg)

• Music: Lounge Music and Mozart’s Piano Concerts

• Artists: Mark Rothko, Henry Moore

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