Jacques de Saussure and Sven Holstenson

Sven Holstenson remembers the first time he met Jacques de Saussure with distinct clarity. "It was in September 2012," he recalls. He had only been at the company for a few weeks and he had been tasked with supporting Jacques in preparing for a town hall with the staff. "I had just left a consulting firm, so I wasn't exactly used to respect and humility," he says, with a smile to Jacques. "You arrived a few minutes late and the first thing you did was apologise for being late. Two minutes. This has been the story of my Pictet journey, filled with respect."

Seven years later, Sven was appointed head of Europe for Pictet Wealth Management, which saw him oversee the six European branches of the business, comprising 12 offices and 250 employees. In May 2023, he was made a managing partner of the Pictet Group, making him the 46th partner appointed to the company. And yet, this impressive career at Pictet appears relatively brief compared to the nearly four decades that Jacques de Saussure spent with the bank.

Jacques joined Pictet back in 1980. He recalls his entry into the bank and how unlikely it at one point seemed. Aptly for this family-focused issue of Pictet Report, it's a story that resonates across generations. Jacques' father, Claude de Saussure, had wanted to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers and become a scientist, but eventually opted to enter the banking profession in the challenging economic wake of the Second World War. "He raised me with a bit of this ambivalence," Jacques recalls. The young Jacques' early interest in science led him to study applied mathematics at the École Polytechnique, but his father spotted the unique talents needed to succeed in banking, and so brought his son into Pictet, where Claude was now a Managing Partner. "I came as a trainee, and the rest is history," says Jacques.

Jacques himself was appointed a partner in 1987, became the bank's Senior Partner in 2010, and finally retired in 2016 at the age of 64. During his time at Pictet, the company, not to mention the entire financial sector, evolved and shifted a great deal. "In the seventies and early eighties, our industry was in the process of digitisation," says Jacques, offering an example of just how much has changed. "The banks were going from being extremely manual, with all the shares traded manually and so on, to being all computer-based. That gave us the opportunity for economies of scale." He joined the bank at a time of huge change, but also of great possibility and potentially meteoric growth.

What's perhaps more striking, however, is how much has actually remained the same since Jacques joined Pictet over 40 years ago. The bank's model, for instance, is unchanged – in fact, it has remained the same since the bank's earliest days. "We are a true partnership," says Jacques, "which basically means that the firm is exclusively owned by people who work in it."

The model has allowed the bank to remain independent for over 200 years. “This independence is a huge asset in terms of being able to run the firm with a long-term perspective,” says Jacques. Sven agrees that this link between independence and long-term thinking is fundamental. “Not having pressure from any external shareholders gives us that liberty to invest for the future,” he explains. “We don’t look at quarters, we don’t look at years. We mainly look at every five years, which is usually what drives our strategy.”

Taking a longer-term perspective also affords the partners the freedom not to act, which is a liberty often overlooked. "When you're a CEO, you can make decisions, but you're also sometimes forced to make a decision because your board doesn't want you to take time," says Jacques. A partnership is completely different. "In terms of power, the partners are equals. You can't force a partner to accept anything, so it's slower because we have to reach a consensus." This can lead to lengthy discussions and heated debates, but for Jacques, the final decision is always "way better than the initial one we had in mind". A slower but correct decision is always wiser in the long run than a quick one.

Sven also has a view on what has kept the partnership so strong for over two centuries, and that's the way that clients are prioritised above all else. "Whatever we do for our clients needs to be at the centre of our interests; then it's our colleagues, then our communities, and only then the partnership itself," says Sven. "I'm convinced today that a firm cannot survive for two centuries if they don't put their clients' interests first."

For Jacques, this rings true not only with his own experience, but also with what he enjoyed most about his job. "The most fascinating part was dealing with clients," he says, reflecting on his 36-year career at Pictet, "because we have the privilege of having an extremely diverse set of clients, people who have all achieved something in their life. It's also a very human thing because when you deal with someone's assets, you deal with something very deep inside people, it's really part of their core."

To illustrate just how deeply human that relationship is, Jacques recalls a story from his time at Pictet. The story revolves around a client who moved to Geneva from France in the early 1940s. "He was with us for so many years and then he reached the age of 100," says Jacques. The client's relationship manager at Pictet asked him what the bank could do to mark the special occasion. "He said, 'Well, at my age, I have no more friends because they've all passed away, so what would make me really happy is to be able to come for lunch at the bank with my daughter and granddaughter.'" Jacques was invited to join the lunch, and he remembers it as a remarkable celebration and a privilege "to be present, to really honour this fantastic relationship that lasted close to 70 years".