Solita Marcelli took on the job of managing and growing one of the world's largest pools of assets in April 2025 and spent what her team calculated as more than 3,000 hours on the road in the year that followed—Singapore one week, São Paulo the next, Istanbul after that. Travel is central to how she leads UBS global wealth management.
"My instinct has always been to begin by understanding the local context before trying to apply global solutions," she said. "Markets have different histories, clients have different relationships with risk and trust is built differently in different cultures."
Marcelli oversees a team of 800 and $2.5 trillion in assets in her role as global head of investment management, a position created in 2025 when UBS unified its four regional investment teams under a single leader. The results over the past 18 months are tangible. UBS Manage, the firm's flagship discretionary platform outside the U.S., delivered 100% growth in net new inflows, driven in part by My Way, a modular investment offering what Marcelli says is like "Lego pieces" for portfolio construction, letting clients and advisors test portfolio construction in real time.
In the U.S., the new House View signature portfolios gathered more than $1 billion in their first quarter, reflecting the bank's strength in personalized separately managed accounts. In the more trading-oriented Asian market, UBS posted its strongest year ever for discretionary flows. Internally, her U.S. portfolio construction team partnered with Swiss colleagues to develop a new risk monitoring framework for European clients.
Growing up in Turkey during periods of severe inflation gave her an outsider's view of wealth that informs her vision. Then, financial security was never abstract when the gold coins given at birthdays and weddings were tangible gifts of security in an uncertain world. "Wealth management isn't ultimately about outperforming a benchmark or chasing the latest trends. It's about helping people make better financial decisions for the lives they want to build," Marcelli said.
Her varied experience and commitment to others makes her all the more effective of a leader, said Jeff Schoenfeld, retired general partner at Brown Brothers Harriman. He knows Marcelli through their work with UJA Federation of New York, a charity that supports local New Yorkers and Jewish people worldwide facing poverty and other crises. "Solita is one of those people who, no matter how much she travels, prioritizes volunteer service because it speaks to her values," he said. "People who have multiple dimensions in their lives tend to build broader and deeper relationships with clients."
Marcelli's work inside and outside UBS, whether in New York or somewhere else on the globe, has shown her that, while people approach money differently, everyone ultimately wants the same thing. "They want confidence in the future and advice they can trust," she said. "The best global organizations don't export one way of thinking; they learn from every market. That's where my journey has brought me."
