Corporate Center

Clive Standish | UBS Group Chief Financial Officer and Head of the Corporate Center

Corporate Center creates value for shareholders and other stakeholders by partnering with the Business Groups to ensure that the firm operates as an effective and integrated whole with a common vision and set of values. It helps UBS's businesses grow sustainably through its risk, financial control, treasury, communication, legal and compliance, human resources, strategy, offshoring and technology functions.

Aims and objectives

Our commitment to a strongly integrated business model means that our complementary businesses must be managed together to optimize returns and control risk.

Corporate Center supports UBS's businesses, enabling them to operate effectively within this framework.

It fosters the long-term financial stability of UBS by maintaining an appropriate balance between risk and reward, and establishes and controls UBS's corporate governance processes – including compliance with relevant regulations. The functional heads within the Corporate Center exercise authority across UBS's businesses for their area, including the authority to issue group-wide policies in their respective areas of responsibility and with each of their Business Group counterparts having a functional reporting line to them.

They are responsible for UBS's financial, tax, and capital management and its risk control, legal and compliance activities. The Corporate Center is responsible for communicating with all UBS stakeholders, for branding, and for positioning the firm as the employer of choice. The Corporate Center assumes operational responsibility for certain business units that provide shared services to the Business Groups – among them the information technology infrastructure and offshoring units (including the service center in India).

Organizational structure

The Corporate Center is made up of one unit comprising its operational functions, plus the information technology infrastructure (ITI) and offshoring units.

The Corporate Center is led by the Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The operational functions of Corporate Center are managed by the Corporate Center Executive Committee.

Corporate Center started to be reported as a single unit in fourth quarter 2005, following the sale of UBS's private label banks and specialist asset manager GAM to Julius Baer in December 2005. Previous to this, Corporate Center had two separate business units: Corporate Functions and Private Banks & GAM, following the latter's shift out of the wealth and asset management businesses into a holding company on 25 April 2003.

The ITI business became part of Corporate Center on 1 April 2004, while the offshoring unit was launched on 17 June 2005.

Although not formally a part of Corporate Center, the costs for the Chairman's Office (which comprises the Company Secretary, Board of Directors, and Group Internal Audit) are reported in the Financial Statements under Corporate Center.

Group Chief Financial Officer

The Group Chief Financial Officer is responsible for transparency in the financial performance of the Group and its individual businesses, and for the Group's financial reporting, planning, forecasting and controlling processes as well as providing advice on financial aspects of strategic plans and mergers and acquisitions transactions. He is also responsible for UBS's tax and capital management. In coordination with the Group General Counsel and Chief Communication Officer, he defines the standards for accounting, reporting and disclosure and, together with the CEO, provides external certifications under sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. He manages relations with investors and coordinates working relationships with internal and external auditors.

The Group Chief Financial Officer is the GEB member responsible for ITI and Group Offshoring, and for the own-use corporate real estate portfolio across the firm. In addition to his functional roles set out above, the CFO is head of the Corporate Center.

Group Chief Risk Officer

The Group Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is responsible for developing UBS's risk management and control principles and for the independent risk control processes for credit, market and operational risks. Together with the Chief Credit Officer, the Head of Market Risk and the Head of Operational Risk, who report to him, he formulates and implements risk policies and control processes, develops risk quantification methods and sets and monitors associated limits and controls. They ensure that risks are completely and consistently recorded and aggregated, that risk concentrations are identified, and that exposures are continuously monitored, pro-actively controlled and remain within approved risk profiles. They ensure that UBS's approach is consistent with best market practice and that the firm is operating within its agreed risk bearing capacity. They exercise specific risk control authorities.

Group General Counsel

The Group General Counsel has group-wide responsibility for legal and compliance matters and for legal and compliance policies and processes, supported by the Head of Group Compliance. He defines the strategy, goals and organizational structure of the legal function, and sets and monitors group-wide quality standards for handling the legal affairs of the Group. Supported by the Head of Group Compliance, the Group General Counsel is responsible for ensuring that UBS meets relevant regulatory and professional standards in the conduct of its business. He supervises the General Counsels of the Business Groups, working closely with the Group CRO with regard to the operational risk aspects of legal and liability risk. He establishes a group-wide management and control process for the Group's relationship with regulators, in close cooperation with the Group CRO and Group CFO as appropriate.

Group Treasurer

The Group Treasurer is responsible for the management of UBS's financial resources and financial infrastructure. He is responsible for group-level governance of treasury processes and transactions which relate to UBS's corporate legal structure, regulatory capital, balance sheet, funding and liquidity, and non-trading currency and interest rate risk. His responsibility includes the issuance of policies in order to ensure proper management and efficient co-ordination of treasury processes on a group-wide basis. The Group Treasurer manages the group's equity, taking into account financial ratios and regulatory capital requirements, with a view to maintaining strategic flexibility, sound capitalization and strong ratings. He manages UBS's holdings of its own shares and recommends corporate actions to the Group Executive Board and the Board of Directors.

Head of Group Controlling & Accounting

The Head of Group Controlling & Accounting has UBS-wide responsibility for financial control. He is responsible for the production and analysis of accurate and objective regulatory, financial and management accounts and reports. The Head of Group Controlling & Accounting provides consistent and appropriate communication to the Board of Directors, Group Executive Board (GEB), Group Managing Board (GMB), the Audit Committee, internal and external auditors, and the CFOs of the Business Groups. He supports the Group CFO in the Group's planning and forecasting process.

Head of Group Accounting Policy

The Head of Group Accounting Policy establishes group-wide financial accounting policies and ensures compliance by the Business Groups and Corporate Center. He manages relations with external auditors and accounting standards bodies.

Chief Communication Officer

The Chief Communication Officer is responsible for managing UBS's communication to its various stakeholders, ensuring that a positive and powerful image of UBS is established and broadcast to all stakeholders globally. He develops the strategy, content and positioning of communications of corporate importance, emphasizing transparency, consistency, speed and integrity. He presents UBS and its businesses to the media, enhancing and protecting the firm's reputation. To employees, he promotes understanding of the firm's strategies, performance and culture. He presents UBS to investors, analysts and rating agencies and is responsible for preparing and publishing quarterly and annual reporting products. He manages and promotes the UBS corporate brand via advertising, sponsorship, art, and visual design, represents UBS's interests to policy-makers, and coordinates UBS's approach to corporate responsibility.

Group Head Human Resources

The Group Head Human Resources has UBS-wide responsibility for the human resources function. He is responsible for shaping a meritocratic culture of ambition and performance, and promoting UBS's values for action. He builds UBS's capacity to attract and retain the best talent and creates an innovative and flexible environment ensuring that all employees from different cultures and backgrounds with different perspectives can develop and succeed. He supports succession planning for senior executives and designs and administers global compensation and benefits programs.

Leadership Institute

The UBS Leadership Institute contributes to the development of leadership capabilities at senior management levels by providing a systematic approach to talent development and alignment. Its main responsibility is the design, development and delivery of leadership development programs targeted at current and future senior leaders. It also organizes forums that enable UBS leaders to shape UBS group strategy, organization and culture and to discuss issues critical to the firm's growth.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is the head of the information technology infrastructure (ITI) unit. ITI encompasses all IT infrastructure teams across UBS, covering management of data networks, telephone and other communications systems, IT security, distributed computing and servers, mainframes and data centers, market data services, user services and desktop computing. The unit focuses on serving all UBS's businesses in a client-driven and cost-efficient way, as well as building towards a consistent technical architecture across UBS through the execution of our technology infrastructure strategy.

Group Offshoring

The Head Group Offshoring is responsible for delivering offshoring services to the Business Groups at appropriate, competitive prices, with its service center(s) ensuring that physical and technical features meet UBS risk and quality standards and comply with the operational risk framework. The India Service Center in Hyderabad is the first such service center and is a dedicated offshoring facility operated by UBS employees.