Fabrizio Campelli new Deutsche Bank investment bank head

Frankfurt — Deutsche Bank has appointed Fabrizio Campelli to lead its investment bank as CEO Christian Sewing gives up oversight of the unit to focus on the overhaul of the lender with a renewed contract.

“The realignment of responsibilities will allow the CEO to focus on cross-divisional priorities such as client-centricity, sustainability and the control environment,” supervisory board chair Paul Achleitner said in the statement on Monday. “Overall, we see Deutsche Bank’s leadership well positioned, which is also underscored by the new contract for Christian Sewing.”

The bank also said COO Frank Kuhnke will leave, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg. The bank appointed Rebecca Short to the management board as chief transformation officer, the role previously held by Campelli. She will also assume oversight over the bank’s wind-down unit from Kuhnke.

The management revamp, which will also see chief risk officer Stuart Lewis leave in 2021, is one of the biggest since Sewing took over as CEO almost exactly three years ago.

“The aim of the reorganisation is to focus the management team more closely on the four business divisions to ensure sustainable profitability after the bank’s return to profitability in 2020,” Deutsche Bank said in the statement. “The bank has also realigned some infrastructure functions to further sharpen the focus on controls, costs, and risks.”

Revenue at the investment bank jumped by almost a third last year as clients sought to navigate the volatility caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Both fixed-income trading, led by Ram Nayak, and underwriting of debt issues and equity capital raises, led by Mark Fedorcik, soared amid buoyant global capital markets.

Earlier in March, Campelli gave an upbeat outlook for the investment bank, sending shares of the lender higher. A British and Italian citizen, he has been with Deutsche Bank since 2004 and first worked in the investment bank for about five years before moving on to run the bank’s strategy division and then its wealth management unit.

Sewing took on the dual role of CEO and investment banking head as part of his decision in 2019 to pull out of equities trading and slash the division’s headcount. The decision was viewed with scepticism by the bank’s regulators, who told Sewing soon after that they would prefer him to give up the role out of concern that it it overburdens him.

Bloomberg