Andreas Utermann
Andreas Ernst Ferdinand Utermann commonly referred to as Andreas E.F. Utermann(born January 1966) is an Anglo-German businessman and banking executive. Utermann was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vontobel Holding AG at the company’s AGM on April 6, 2022. Utermann led Allianz Global Investors, a global investment company owned by Allianz, for eight years from 2012, initially as a co-head and Global Chief Investment Officer and then as CEO from 2016. Early life and education Andreas Utermann was born in Brussels to German parents and attended the European School of Brussels before moving to the UK to study at the London School of Economics, from which he graduated with a BSc degree in Economics in 1989. He subsequently obtained an MA degree in Economics at the Catholic University of Leuven, having agreed to defer his entry into S.G. Warburg's graduate programme for a year in order to do so. Utermann also holds the CFA's ASIP qualification. Career Utermann joined Mercury Asset Management in 1989, becoming head of pan-European and subsequently global equities over the course of his 13 years there. He left Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (as Mercury became known a couple of years after its 1997 acquisition by Merrill Lynch) in 2002. In 2002, Utermann joined Allianz to become its global CIO for equities. When Allianz's asset management division restructured in 2011, Utermann became Global CIO and co-head of Allianz Global Investors alongside Elizabeth Corley as CEO; in a 2012 media story headlined “Mercury keeps rising at AllianzGI”, the journalist noted that the co-head structure followed “the mixed gender trail blazed by Carol Galley and Stephen Zimmerman, former co-heads of Mercury Asset Management, where both Utermann and Corley honed their craft.” Utermann was sole CEO since 2016, when Corley moved into a non-executive role within the firm. During his time in charge of Allianz Global Investors, Utermann expanded its investment offering further into bonds (for instance with the acquisition of Rogge Global Partners in early 2016) and creating a dedicated Alternative investments function. Utermann retired as CEO of AllianzGI on 31 December 2019 and served as advisor to the firm until 30.6.2020. In January 2020, Utermann was made a fellow of the CFA Society of the UK in recognition of his ‘exceptional service’ to the investment profession. Utermann was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vontobel Holding AG in April 2022, having been appointed to the Board as a Non-Executive Director in April 2021. Active investing As CEO and Global CIO of Allianz Global Investors, Utermann was vocal on the subject of active investing in the asset management industry. Despite leading an active manager, he has acknowledged perception challenges facing the industry in light of cheaper passive investing alternatives such as ETFs. In 2014, Utermann wrote in the Financial Times that active investors needed to take concerted action to generate meaningful outperformance for clients and avoid becoming so-called closet trackers. In 2016, he wrote in the same paper about the perils of smart beta