Executive Portraits – A (Former) Credit Suisse Affair

For years, various departments at Credit Suisse, may it rest in peace under the mighty wings of UBS, would call whenever key personnel needed new portraits. Executives came and went; the brief stayed the same. Authority, but approachable. Banker, but human.

These were fifteen-minute sessions with people whose calendars are measured in six-minute increments. Everything stood ready before they walked in, and most of the real work was the ninety seconds in which they forgot they were being photographed.

Some of these turned out to be among the last official portraits ever taken under the Credit Suisse name. I didn't know that at the time. Neither did they.