UniCredit has announced a management shake-up as Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of its Global Securities Services (GSS) division, is leaving the firm. He will be replaced by Tomasz Grajewski, previously head of GSS in Poland.
UniCredit says Szalay-Berzeviczy plans to take a sabbatical and will then look for new opportunities in the world of the securities industry. The firm did not reveal further details about the reason for his departure. Ostensibly he has spent his entire career at the same organization, having in 1990 joined Budapest Bank, which was bought by Bank Austria, which was taken over by HypoVereinsbank (HVB), which ultimately was acquired by UniCredit in 2005.
Szalay-Berzeviczy was head of GSS Hungary for 14 years and global head of the division for the past three. He is credited with building the Central & Eastern European sub-custody network at UniCredit, along with Michael Aschauer, former global head of custody, and David Penstone, former global head of sales and business development, who left UniCredit in 2009 to join Deutsche Bank. (Aschauer is now head of global sales and relationship management and Penstone head of global sales and relationship management, EMEA, for Direct Securities Services at Deutsche Bank.)
UniCredit at the time had attempted to sell its sub-custody and clearing network, but when that failed it promoted Szalay-Berzeviczy, a well-known securities services professional and former chairman of the Budapest Stock Exchange, to head GSS following the resignations of Aschauer and Penstone. (See UniCredit does a U-turn, Global Custodian, Summer 2009).
Grajewski joined UniCredit in 2008 as managing director of Bank Pekao, its Polish arm, and head of GSS Poland. Before that, he spent a number of years at Citi, most recently head of the relationship management team at Citibank Handlowy Securities Services from 2003-08.
In addition to Grajewskis appointment, GC Legend John Gubert, who has served as a senior adviser to UniCredit GSS since 2010, has been appointed chairman of the GSS executive committee. Gubert once served as the head of HSBC Securities Services and is presently chairman of the International Securities Markets Advisory Group (ISMAG). He has served on the boards of Crest, Euroclear, ISSA and LCH and on committees at SWIFT and G30.
Additionally, Julia Romhanyi (head of GSS in Hungary) and Alexander Nazarov (head of GSS in Moscow) have been appointed regional heads, each assuming responsibility for a number of geographies and reporting to Grajewski.
Romhanyi, based in Budapest, will be responsible for GSS in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia while retaining leadership of GSS Hungary. Nazarov, based in Moscow, will take on responsibility for GSS in Kazakhstan and Ukraine while continuing to lead the Russian business and expanding links into other markets in the region.
All other management structures remain unchanged, including those for GSS Austria, GSS Czech Republic and the Vienna-based central team, including sales and relationship management and network management.
(CG)