Grey Cells Associates was founded in 2009 by Tobias Straessle. Tobias is an internationally experienced senior IT and business executive with decades of experience in the financial services industry having operated in many different roles such as chairman, board member, chief executive, senior executive, line manager, management consultant, systems developer & engineer. He has a track record of shaping and implementing new technology-based business operating models & services, scaling businesses for growth, managing complex business & operational change programs, optimising value chains for higher productivity and cost efficiency as well as building and leading large multi-cultural, high performance IT and Operations teams. He has worked on the business as well as on the technology side of financial enterprises.
His expertise further includes business and technology innovations in capital markets trading & settlement, electronic exchanges, online wealth management and personal financial management as well as strategic leadership & management of information technology and operations divisions, outsourcing, technology due diligence, global management, IT and business architectures. Most recent work also includes the use of crypto and blockchain technology.
Tobias was recently chairman of the board as well as interim CEO of Saxo Bank (Switzerland).. He is a senior advisor of the Eleven Canterbury worldwide advisory network. He is also an investor and board member of various start-ups delivering new offerings for personal financial management, asset digitalisation and FX execution.
Tobias held senior executive positions with Saxo Bank as CIO, COO and Head of New Business Solutions, based in Copenhagen; with UBS/SBC investment bank in London & Switzerland in various global CIO roles; with CBI in Geneva as Head of Financial Derivatives; with Andersen Consulting (Accenture) as Senior Management Consultant in their financial practice and with Credit Suisse as Systems Engineer.
Tobias holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) and an MBA from J.L.Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago. Tobias is Swiss and speaks German, English and French.