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When I was a fresher last year, a second-year flat mate told me that no matter which concentration I would have chosen, I had to pick Private Wealth Management as an elective because it would have given me the possibility of gaining really useful insights about the industry. This tip combined with a high degree of curiosity pushed me to choose Private Wealth Management, however when I decided I wanted to take this class I would have never expected to attend a guest lecture conducted by the CEO of UBS Europe, Thomas Rodermann.
On Friday 30th November Mr. Rodermann dedicated almost two hours of his time to us; I personally felt intimidated at the beginning, you don’t often get to talk to a CEO, at least not to me. The purpose of the lecture was mainly giving an overview on private wealth management, its development and challenges; but I personally think it was more than that. Once again, I was demonstrated that everything in finance matters regardless of geography: the critical situation in Italy can drag down the performance of your Chinese client’s portfolio. Mr. Rodermann did indeed touch some hot topics, such as Brexit, Italy, the roaring China, technology and interest rates; in the meantime, I was admiring the easiness he had in linking all these macro-aspects and I was trying to write down everything he was saying, so that maybe I can impress some future interviewers 😀 Moreover, he mentioned extremely interesting facts, for example, do you know that China creates two billionaires a week? Before the lecture with Mr. Rodermann I had no idea either.
At the end of his lecture there was the usual Q&A session, the CEO answered with a high degree of transparency our questions covering a wide range of topics. In particular, I appreciated his sincerity in telling us more about the intense and varying daily life of a CEO, considered by him one of the toughest challenges in his role and I think the whole class appreciated his recommendation on key aspects needed to be a successful Client Advisor in Private Wealth Management.
I now want to impersonate my previous flat mate and recommend that Master students at least consider Private Wealth Management as an elective. It is interesting, and it might give you the same opportunities it gave us this year 
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