Heinzl, who ran the group’s investments, sales and product management business from 2012 to 2014 (later becoming Vontobel’s Wealth Management division), is returning to the business from UBS, where he was most recently COO of asset management and chairman of UBS Asset Management Switzerland.

At UBS Heinzl was responsible for strategy, regulation, business and reputational risk management and led spinning off asset management from the bank in Switzerland. His imprint is also on a host of global digitisation projects at UBS.

CEO Zeno Staub said he “brings first-hand knowledge of our core businesses,” referring to Heinzl's time developing Vontobel's wealth arm before leaving for UBS.

Heinzl began his career at McKinsey in Zurich, where he advised wealth and asset managers on strategy and risk management. The Austrian citizen holds a doctorate from the University of St Gallen which focused on capital market theory, and a degree in engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, which focused on database technology and artificial intelligence.

Vontobel praised Castagnola as “instrumental” in driving growth and financial stability at the bank.