Zeno Staub

Dr. Zeno Staub was born in 1969 and is a Swiss citizen. He studied economics at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), where he earned his doctorate (Dr. oec. HSG). From 1994 to 2000 he was a founding shareholder and managing partner at Almafin AG in St. Gallen, working in consulting and software development focused on risk management, asset and liability management, and regulatory reporting. In 2000 he served on the executive board of Zurich-based BZ Informatik AG (a predecessor of the banking-software firm Avaloq).

Staub joined Vontobel in 2001. He held a succession of senior roles as a member of the Group Executive Management — Chief Financial Officer (2001–2006), then Head of Investment Banking, and from 2008 Head of Asset Management. In 2011 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Vontobel Holding AG and Bank Vontobel AG, a position he held for roughly twelve years until stepping down at the Annual General Meeting on 9 April 2024. He was succeeded by a co-CEO team of Christel Rendu de Lint and Georg Schubiger.

In 2023 Staub announced he would leave the CEO role to become more active in Swiss public life, standing as the lead candidate for the "Die Mitte – Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (AWG)" sub-list of the centrist Die Mitte party in the October 2023 National Council (Nationalrat) elections for the Canton of Zurich. He was not elected, receiving roughly 4,867 votes, well short of the threshold for a seat. After a one-year cooling-off period, he returned to Vontobel as an ordinary member of the Board of Directors (standing for election at the 2025 AGM), where he sits on the Risk and Audit Committee.

Alongside his Vontobel mandate, Staub is President (Chairman) of the University Council of the University of St. Gallen (HSG), a board member of the Bühler Group, chairman of climatex and of WorldReplica, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation, and chairman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (AWG) of the Canton of Zurich.

• As a Vontobel executive, Staub's professional focus was institutional wealth and asset management, structured products, and investment banking — not early-stage venture or angel investing. No personal, stated seed/angel thesis could be found.
• His public engagements point to interests in sustainability and climate (chairman of climatex), Swiss industry and innovation (board of the Bühler Group), and education/research (President of the HSG University Council).
• During his tenure Vontobel pushed themes such as sustainable investing and expansion in Asian and international markets — signals of his professional focus areas rather than a personal check-writing strategy.
• Founders should treat the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" label attached to his contact record as unverified; there is no evidence he runs a seed-stage angel program.