Acknowledgments

When I started to write this book at the beginning of 2008, I did not anticipate that the upcoming four years would be the most intense, interesting, and thrilling ones I have up until now experienced in my professional life. I am not referring only to my career development but certainly also to the events that affected the financial industry and indeed much of the world during this period. The financial industry has entered a phase of radical change with the debate about the future of private banking—the very subject of this book—taking on new dimensions that hardly could have been imagined just a decade ago, or even when I started to write this book. Without a doubt, this period has provided me with much inspiration and a good deal of insight, furnishing fertile ground to bring this project to fruition.

Certainly, however, it would never have been possible to write this book during such turbulent times without the valuable contributions offered by those to whom I am grateful for their help and unflagging support. Two people in particular deserve mention for being there early on when the book was little more than an idea and sticking with it to the end. Christina Ziegler and Guido Ruoss have helped to take this book from a set of ideas to something with a carefully conceived and viable structure, providing considerable support in content management and research, going through numerous revisions, and pulling everything together whilst acting as a valuable sounding board. Without their help and unflagging commitment the book would not have been completed. I also would like to express my sincerest appreciation to Alice Ratcliffe for the extensive editing work and professional writing experience she has brought to the project.

Further I also would also like to thank the two industry leaders—Raymond Baer and Hans de Gier—for sharing their valuable experience and thoughts in the context of the book. My sincere thanks also go to Leo Charitos and Jan Bielinski for reading the manuscript and making valuable suggestions, which were readily incorporated. To Anthony Lassman, Gareth Penny, Alain Zimmermann, Andreas Zingg, Beat Blaesi, Gwen Walbert, Wolfgang Jenewein, Renate Meier, Daniel Aegerter, Marcel Widmer, Werner Hollenstein, Anne-Marie Nega-Ledermann, Eric Benischke, Cyril Schoch, and David Taylor for their valuable contributions and insightful discussions about their field of expertise. I also would like to thank the team from Wiley—Nick Wallwork, Jules Yap, Janis Soo, Emilie Herman, and Stefan Skeen—for their great editing support and production work. Finally, I would like to express my thankfulness and honest recognition to all the people who accompanied me during my career—in particular the employees of Julius Baer—for their trust and support and the various ways in which they have enriched my professional experience.