Full Name Philip Vasan Nationality American | Name Philip Vasan | |
Occupation CEO of Private Bank of Credit Suisse in the Americas Education Oberlin College, Harvard University | ||
Philip Vasan (born April 9, 1959) is the Head of Investments and Portfolio Solutions at BlackRock, Inc. Previously, he was the CEO of the Private Bank of Credit Suisse in the Americas from 2013 until 2016. He also became a member of the global Management Committee of the Private Bank in that year.
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Early life and education
Vasan was born in New York City on April 9, 1959. He is a graduate of Oberlin College where he earned his BA in 1980. He received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1986.
Career
Vasan became the Head of Investments and Portfolio Solutions at BlackRock, Inc. in July 2016. On July 12, 2016 it was announced that Vasan was hired by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to develop BlackRock products and new portfolios for private banks and independent wealth advisers.
Prior to this, he was with the Credit Suisse bank from 1992 until 2016. During his tenure as CEO of the Private Bank for North America and Latin America, he sponsored the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy in 2013. Vasan turned the US business to profitability, after which it was sold to Wells Fargo.
He also developed Credit Suisse’s Prime Service franchise during the ten years between 2003 and 2013. The franchise ranked a top-2 market position.
In partnership with Professor Andrew Lo of MIT, and Pankaj Patel of Credit Suisse, Vasan launched the first passive and investible Equity 130/30 index. In his Prime Services position, he was a frequent speaker on markets and on industry developments. Vasan was recognized for having promoted the multi-prime model for hedge funds before that became mainstream. Under Vasan, Prime Services became known for being the top prime broker to a select client base. Vasan was named one of the 50 most influential people in hedge funds in 2010 by HFM Week.
From 2002 to 2003 he was the worldwide head of Equity Derivatives and Convertibles, Program Trading, and Proprietary Trading. From 2000 to 2001 Vasan was the head of e-Commerce technology and investments. From 1996 to 2000 he was the Head of Global Foreign Exchange. In that role, Vasan and the heads of Foreign Exchange from other major banks launched FXall, the market’s first online FX trading platform for institutional clients. FXall was subsequently bought by Thompson Reuters.
Prior to this, from 1992 until 1996, Vasan developed and ran Credit Suisse’s FX derivatives business globally.
Before joining Credit Suisse, he worked for Citibank, trading interest rate and currency derivatives before running their FX options business in the US.
Board memberships and honors
Vasan was a visiting lecturer in finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1998. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and the Investment Committee of Oberlin College. He is also a former Director of the Managed Funds Association.
Family life
Vasan is married to Tina Redwine Vasan and has two children, Julia and Peter.