Credit Suisse has appointed chief information officer, Karl Landert, who is responsible for the Swiss bank’s information technology division, to its executive board.

Mr Landert was appointed chief information officer in March 2008, having previously been head of IT for Credit Suisse’s private banking division and a member of the private banking management committee. Before joining Credit Suisse in 2001, Mr Landert held various senior IT management positions at Novartis Pharma; previously he worked at IBM.

As chief information officer, Mr Landert reports to Credit Suisse’s chief executive Brady Dougan, who highlighted the significance of his addition to the executive board.

"This appointment reflects the integral role that IT plays in the bank's success and recognises the significant contribution that Karl and his team have made to Credit Suisse by enhancing our IT operations. In the past year alone, Karl has streamlined our IT operations, significantly increased the reliability of our IT processes and built an excellent team,” Mr Dougan said.

“Furthermore, this appointment underscores our firm commitment to building an executive board composed of members with a wide range of expertise and experience. Karl has been with the firm for around nine years and, before being appointed as CIO, led the Bank's efforts to build a state-of the-art IT platform for the private banking division."