Switzerland's second-largest bank confirmed the high-level departure as it retreats from the US.

Nathan Romano, who led the collaboration strategy for Credit Suisse’s investment and private banking operations in the Americas, is leaving the Swiss bank as it retreats from managing money for US clients.

Romano, who joined in 2008 from Bear Stearns, was head of Credit Suisse’s “One Bank” initiative in the Americas. The initiative was launched over a decade ago by then-chief executive Oswald Gruebel to achieve better alignment between the bank’s main geographies and product lines, primarily by sharing of costs and clients. Credit Suisse confirmed Romano's departure but declined to comment further.

In October, as part of a raft of sweeping changes introduced by recently appointed CEO Tidjane Thiam to boost profitability, Credit Suisse agreed to shift its US private banking relationship managers and clients to Wells Fargo’s advisory business. It also announced plans for a partial share float of a 20 to 30 per cent stake in its Swiss universal banking unit by the end of 2017, and a greater focus on emerging markets, especially Asia.

On Tuesday last week, the Zurich-listed lender, which generated a SFr2.94 billion ($2.95 billion) net loss for 2015, saw a sharp sell-off to SFr13.01 per share, from just over SFr17.05 per share the week before. Thiam asked for his bonus to be cut by as much as half and according to the Financial Times, and said the sell-off was “not justified”, highlighting the bank’s strong balance sheet.