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Katie Cusack

news published date 23 April 2018
  • Our Stories
Credit Suisse

Katie is a 21 year veteran of the investment banking industry, having begun her career after receiving her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997 and joining Goldman Sachs as an Associate in Mergers & Acquisitions. She moved into investment banking management when she joined Credit Suisse in 2007, and is currently the global Head of Collaboration for the Investment Banking and Capital Markets

Katie is a Managing Director on the IBCM management team globally, and has worked in senior management roles across three financial hubs: New York, London and Hong Kong. She was the Chief Operating Officer for the IBCM Division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2015 to January of this year; prior to this she was the Chief Operating Officer for Asia Pacific.

She has been shortlisted for the 2018 Award for Achievement, having been nomnated by Jens Welter.

Tell us about your day to day role.

As of January of this year, I assumed the newly established role of Head of Collaboration for Investment Banking & Capital Markets (“IBCM”). I am focused on driving collaboration broadly between investment banking and private banking, globally. This includes growing our level of cross-divisional business referrals, as well as establishing strategic initiatives around areas where the various businesses must work together to serve our clients, especially UHNWI and entrepreneurs. Each day is different – but every day involves expanding my internal network and lots of idea generation, which is exciting.

Prior to assuming this role on 16 January 2018, I had been the Chief Operating Officer of IBCM in EMEA and APAC, in which role I oversaw the breadth of management functions within my regions, including risk & controls, financial reporting, strategy and talent management.

Can you tell us more about the Credit Suisse Global Junior Banker Mobility Programme?

The Credit Suisse Junior Banker Mobility Programme is perhaps the part of my previous COO role I enjoyed the most. This industry leading initiative strongly supports the career development of our top performing junior banking professionals by matching personal career goals with business needs, and executing temporary or permanent moves across divisions, product/coverage groups, or geographies. The programme’s success was based on establishing flexible, general guidelines that could be successfully applied to a wide range of situations. This flexibility and broad business support allowed for significantly increased numbers over the past 5 years, and making mobility an important recruiting highlight and business tool, rather than an “exceptional internal move.”

What is an essential quality of a successful manager?

Successful managers maximize team performance. The ability to motivate a team and drive performance depends greatly on making a personal commitment to supporting your team and taking ownership of the overall team outcome, or balancing performance demands with the willingness to say “I have your back” as a leader. I believe teams that believe in their leadership strive harder for excellence and work more collaboratively.

When was a time you were out of your comfort zone and how did it ultimately help you?

Right now! My new role is new to me, but also new to our organisation. I faced a blank sheet of paper in January, and a lot of advice on how difficult this is going to be… Without a doubt, nothing motivates me more than being told what I had to do was going to be a challenge. I am more excited and confident about helping to drive our overall global strategy than ever, and I am finding that enthusiasm and confidence rubs off on others.

How can we get the biggest shift towards diverse and inclusive workplaces?

I have come to believe in setting targets. Like anything else in business, success depends on setting goals and sticking to your plan. If you believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace is good for business, set diversity goals and hold management responsible for hitting them. Every other “programme,” “initiative” or “effort” I hear about right now are the same things we talked about when I started in banking over 20 years ago. And here we are…

If you could take a month off to go travelling, where would you go and what would you see?

China. I studied Chinese language and history at university, and have had a deep interest in the country. I have visited many times and many places, but there is always something new to see and experience. I particularly like to see how second and third tier cities and towns showcase the rapid social and economic development and issues that most tourists don’t see.