Since February, I have been working on and off on a look at the controversial tenure of Tidjane Thiam as CEO of @creditsuisse. I learned a few things along the way.

Thiam was only the second Black CEO of a major international bank (after Stanley O'Neal, the CEO of Merrill Lynch, who left that bank under a cloud in 2007). Hopes were high for Thiam's impact on Credit Suisse: company shares rose 7% when his hiring was announced.

Reserved, intellectual, a speaker of French, English, and some German, Thiam had been born in Ivory Coast, educated in France, and had worked at the World Bank and McKinsey before running @pru_uk.

Many people I interviewed with said they were blown away when they first met him by his knowledge and disarming charm. But early on, the resistance started.

At Thiam's very first annual meeting, a shareholder called out his background. "Is that really what we want? That a good, solid, Swiss bank sinks to the level of the third world?" she asked.

Urs Rohner, Credit Suisse's chairman, took issue with her question and defended Thiam's hiring.

But the Swiss press was relentless. Dubbing him "King Thiam," some criticized his first-class travel and stays in fancy hotel suites offended some locals. He stopped driving his car to work, for fear of a run-in with another driver or cyclist in Zurich that would create bad PR.

Readers of Swiss coverage at various points called him a "fool," a "fruit salesman," an "idiot," and someone who should "go home." He was called out for scratching the floor of a Davos hotel while wearing mountain boots. He paid for the damage.

Late last year, a surveillance scandal involving detectives tailing a former Credit Suisse exec humiliated the bank. There was no evidence that Thiam knew about it; his No. 2, a former lieutenant from Prudential, took responsibility. But it paved the way for Thiam's ouster.

In the midst of that, he attended a birthday party for CS's chairman -- essentially, his boss. At the party, where Thiam was the only Black guest, a Black entertainer dressed as a janitor swept the floor to music, and white guests put on Afro wigs.

Two months later, @business reported that the chairman was looking for CEO replacements. Major shareholders fought back, arguing that Thiam was doing a good job; he had restored the bank to profitability, delivered the best performance in nine years, revamped wealth management.

It was not enough. His position untenable, Thiam resigned on Feb. 7. The closest he came to discussing the role of race in his experience was at a press conference a week later.

A reporter questioned why, given his smart strategy, he hadn't conformed better to the Swiss "mentality."

Thiam said: “If people don’t like right-handed people, then I’m in trouble. That’s all I can say, because I can’t become left-handed.”

Here is the full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/business/tidjane-thiam-credit-suisse.html