Zürich, Switzerland

Christian Grupe

Financial Services Executive · Strategy, Transformation & Operations

Twenty-two years in financial services, spent on both sides of the institution. Six of them inside UBS: in the COO Office of UBS Switzerland, and as Executive Director in Global UHNW Wealth Management. The years since, in Swiss and German growth businesses and in independent practice.

He runs Grupe Advisory from Zürich, working with banks and technology companies on strategy, regulatory positioning and delivery.

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The Practice

What Grupe Advisory Does

Four things, each of them work he has done himself before advising anyone else on it.

Strategy, Growth & Financing

Market entry, growth roadmaps and go-to-market design for banks and financial technology companies: five-year business strategy, product-vertical prioritisation, regional expansion. Also capital-raise support, covering investor narrative, investor identification and alternative financing structures.

Delivery & Execution

Programme governance, PMO leadership and hands-on implementation, through to first live client transactions, legal process design and risk frameworks for new products.

Operating Model & Change

Change-the-bank portfolio governance, strategic planning processes and organisational redesign, built on six years in UBS Switzerland's COO Office and in Global UHNW. At the smaller end, standing up the commercial systems a growing business runs on.

Regulatory Strategy & Controls

Cross-border regulatory strategy for financial products, Internal Control System assurance redesign, and client data and Beneficial Owner programmes.

Experience

Since May 2018

Grupe Advisory · Principal

Zürich

Independent advisory practice for institutional banks and venture-backed technology companies across the DACH region. Work spans regulatory strategy, control system redesign, product roadmaps, programme delivery and capital-raise support.

2021 – 2024

re:cap · Head of Growth, then VP of Growth

Zürich / Berlin

Built the growth function from nothing at an alternative debt-financing platform, and was promoted to VP of Growth in the second year. Over his time there the platform went from launch to more than EUR 20m in funding volume and over EUR 2m in collected interest revenue, across 60+ transactions with roughly 40 clients. Set up the CRM and built the company's first client pipeline into it, a target list of some 600 companies. Ran the first outbound campaign, and carried client contact alongside the CCO as one of the company's two commercial faces until a sales team existed. Went on to build and lead a team of three, write the five-year business strategy targeting double-digit EUR million revenues, set the funding-product roadmap, and lead the first market entry beyond Germany, into the Netherlands. Also took the company's application for a European Investment Fund guarantee through the EIF's full due diligence process, presenting the product, the business case and the financial plan in formal sessions.

2020 – 2021

Interim Chief Product Officer

Real estate investment start-up, Berlin

Led the product organisation on an interim mandate through Grupe Advisory, owning the roadmap, and the product pipeline together with the CTO. Took the company's first client transactions live end to end, including the legal process and the risk framework.

2018 – 2020

Altoo AG · Business Development

Zug

Built the Swiss and European pipeline from scratch for a digital wealth platform serving private individuals, Multi-Family Offices and tier 2/3 banks. Ran it full-cycle across more than 100 prospects, from identification and cold outreach through negotiation and close, converting over ten into active client relationships. Also evaluated the market, selected and implemented the company's CRM, and owned the pipeline within it.

2016 – 2017

Sabbatical

Fourteen months travelling, after twelve continuous years in consulting and banking.

2011 – 2016

UBS · Executive Director, Wealth Management

Zürich

Head of Business Development Strategy & Projects for the Global UHNW business unit (2011–2014), then Head of Global UHNW Evolution within Investment Products & Services (2014–2016), the unit coordinating the product and services offering for the UHNW segment. Led a five-person team in each mandate, and carried the Global UHNW transformation portfolio of more than 40 initiatives. Reshaped the UHNW segment strategy, covering client clusters, value proposition and the pricing and discount framework. Designed the special advisory process for clients with individual needs and trained more than 200 client advisors globally. Ran the programme management for a new UHNW advisory mandate that transitioned over CHF 1 billion in assets.

2010 – 2011

UBS Switzerland · Director, COO Office

Zürich

Coordinated UBS Switzerland's strategic planning process for 2012–2016, including the definition and alignment of financial targets and KPIs. Built and maintained the division's strategically aligned change-the-bank project portfolio of more than 100 initiatives, and developed an Economic Profit framework across client and product dimensions.

2008 – 2010

PricewaterhouseCoopers · Senior Manager, Strategy & Operations

Switzerland

Global go-to-market strategy for investor services, including growth scenarios and coverage models. Group-wide project portfolio and Balanced Scorecard design for a tier-1 Swiss life insurer.

2005 – 2007

b&m management · Senior Associate

Zürich · Financial services consultancy, acquired by PwC in 2008

Cost benchmarking and platform cost transparency for a major global bank, a new Regional COO organisational design, and a supplier contract management reorganisation.

2004 – 2005

Accenture · Strategy Consultant

Frankfurt

Procure-to-pay outsourcing business case for a major Austrian bank; tracked and coordinated 280 bank-wide sourcing initiatives with executive reporting.

Selected Work

Engagements are described by client type rather than by name. Figures are quoted only where they are on record.

2026

German Digital Wealth Manager · Interim Financing Round

Advised on a EUR 3m interim financing: sharpened the investor pitch, identified and approached prospective investors, and introduced alternative financing structures.

2025 – 2026

Swiss Financial Services Provider · Evidence Data Lake

Reviewed how the firm organised its assurance evidence, then designed a central evidence data lake enabling automated evidence provision across a broad range of assurance deliverables.

2024 – 2025

Swiss Financial Services Provider · Internal Control System

Led the analysis, redesign and implementation of the firm's Internal Control System assurance process, harmonising control definitions across the organisation and remapping them to the underlying IT systems. The same provider commissioned the follow-on evidence data lake the following year.

2021

German Fintech · Pan-European Regulatory Strategy

Analysed the B2B credit regulatory landscape across Europe, covering banking licence, fronting bank and AIF structures, and derived a scalable cross-border funding strategy.

2018

Major Swiss Financial Services Company · PMO, Beneficial Owner Data

Delivered PMO services for a private client data harmonisation programme addressing Beneficial Owner requirements.

Portrait of Christian Grupe

About

Christian Grupe started in strategy consulting at Accenture in Frankfurt, then b&m management and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Zürich, and moved into UBS in 2010. He spent fifteen months as a Director in the COO Office of UBS Switzerland, coordinating the divisional strategic planning process and the change-the-bank portfolio, then five years in Wealth Management: Head of Business Development Strategy & Projects for the Global UHNW segment, and later Head of Global UHNW Evolution within Investment Products & Services. He led a five-person team in each.

He left UBS at the end of 2016 and took fourteen months out to travel, the first real break since he started work in 2004.

He founded Grupe Advisory in 2018. In the years since he has run it both as his sole occupation and around two full-time operating roles: business development at Altoo, a digital wealth platform in Zug, and Head then VP of Growth at re:cap, an alternative debt-financing platform, where he built the growth function from the first hire onwards.

Those roles are where the consulting habits got tested. At Altoo and again at re:cap he selected and implemented the CRM and built the first client pipeline into it himself. That is the unglamorous groundwork a growth plan needs underneath it.

He works in German and English and is based in Zürich.

Credentials

Focus

COO & Operations Leadership Strategy & Transformation Operating Model Design Programme & Portfolio Governance Wealth Management / UHNW Regulatory Strategy

Education

Diplom in Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 1998–2003 · Banking apprenticeship (Bankkaufmann), Dresdner Bank, Frankfurt, 1996–1998

Certification

UBS Wealth Management Diploma, UBS, April 2012

Nationality

Swiss and German

Languages

German (native) · English (full professional) · French (elementary) · Spanish (elementary)

Recognition

Wealth Management Circle of Excellence, UBS Wealth Management, April 2013 · UBS Global UHNW Key Talent, UBS Global UHNW, April 2012

Publications

"Modern Tools of Wealth Management", BankingHub by zeb, 4 June 2019 · "Holistic Cost Management in Turbulent Times", PwC Flash, 1 June 2009

Get in Touch

For advisory engagements, get in touch directly.

For senior executive mandates, contact via LinkedIn.

christian@grupe-advisory.ch LinkedIn