Christian Sewing
Quite honestly, I know what diversity has brought us at the management board level…that’s why we are strong supporters of these programs.
— Christian Sewing[1]
Overview
Christian Sewing | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 24 April 1970 Bünde, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany |
| Citizenship | German |
| Education | Bank apprenticeship; Diplom-Bankfachwirt |
| Alma mater | Bankakademie (Bielefeld and Hamburg) |
| Occupation | Banker |
| Employer | Deutsche Bank |
| Known for | Restructuring and turnaround of Deutsche Bank |
| Title | Chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank |
| Term | 2018–present |
| Predecessor | John Cryan |
| Board member of | Association of German Banks (president); Economic Council of the CDU (advisory board member) |
| Spouse | Barbara Sewing (separated) |
| Children | 4 |
| Awards | Euromoney Banker of the Year (2023) |
👔 Christian Sewing (born 24 April 1970) is a German banker who has served as chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank since April 2018, and is credited with leading a far-reaching restructuring and return to profitability at Germany’s largest listed lender.[2][3] He rose from a teenage apprentice in a regional branch to become the first German-born sole chief executive of Deutsche Bank since 2002, taking the helm in 2018 after a period of heavy losses, legal troubles and strategic uncertainty for the group.[4] Born in Bünde in the Westphalian region of Germany, he has spent almost his entire professional life at Deutsche Bank apart from a short spell at a mortgage bank.[5][6]
🏦 Turnaround strategist. Taking charge amid questions over Deutsche Bank’s viability, Sewing launched a “back to basics” programme that shrank the investment bank, exited equities trading, created a non-core “bad bank” for unwanted assets and cut thousands of jobs while refocusing on corporate, private and asset-management clients.[7][3] Under his leadership the bank moved from repeated multi-billion-euro losses to several years of consecutive profits, and its shares and market value recovered from historic lows to their highest levels in more than a decade.[3][8][9]
🌍 Public voice. Beyond his corporate responsibilities, Sewing serves as president of the Association of German Banks and sits on the advisory board of the Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Union, making him one of the most prominent spokespeople for Germany’s financial industry.[2] He has used that platform to speak out against right-wing extremism, to defend diversity and inclusion programmes in business and to position Deutsche Bank as a financier of the transition to a climate-neutral economy.[10][11][12]
Early life and education
🧒 Family background. Christian Sewing was born on 24 April 1970 in the industrial town of Bünde in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, where his father ran a mid-sized printing business that gave the family a solid middle-class footing.[5][4] As a child and teenager he combined strong academic performance with a passion for sport, playing competitive tennis for a local club and becoming an ardent follower of football, especially the Bavarian club Bayern Munich.[13] He initially dreamed of becoming a sports journalist, but his father persuaded him to opt for a more secure profession in banking.[14][5]
🎓 Banking apprenticeship. At 19, Sewing joined Deutsche Bank in 1989 as an apprentice at its branch in Bielefeld, entering a structured training programme that combined work with classroom study in practical banking.[2][5] He gained his banker’s qualification in 1991 and later completed a four-semester part-time course at the Bankakademie in Bielefeld and Hamburg, graduating as a Diplom-Bankfachwirt, roughly equivalent to a banking degree.[5] Looking back on those formative years, he has recalled that the prevailing ethos at Deutsche Bank was that “everyone always strived to be the best”, a competitive culture that deeply influenced his work habits.[14][15]
Early career at Deutsche Bank
🏢 International training ground. During the 1990s Sewing built a broad career within Deutsche Bank, working primarily in corporate banking and risk management and rotating through posts in Frankfurt and major financial centres including London, Singapore, Tokyo and Toronto.[13][16] Colleagues later described these years as his time in the “engine room” of the institution, giving him detailed knowledge of the bank’s internal processes and balance sheet, and Sewing himself has emphasised that few executives know the bank’s machinery as thoroughly as he does.[15]
📊 Risk management roles. In 2005, after more than 16 years at Deutsche Bank, Sewing briefly left to join the management board of Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank, a smaller mortgage lender, broadening his experience of German credit markets before returning to Deutsche Bank in 2007.[6][2] He then rose through senior risk functions, becoming chief credit officer in 2010 as the bank grappled with the aftermath of the global financial crisis, deputy chief risk officer in 2012 and, from 2013, head of the internal audit department, which was tasked with reviewing past misconduct, including the benchmark interest-rate (LIBOR) scandal, and strengthening controls.[3][2]
🧩 Board-level promotion. Sewing joined Deutsche Bank's management board in January 2015 at the age of 44, initially overseeing the legal and audit divisions and chairing an internal crisis-management task force.[2] Later that year he was put in charge of the private and commercial banking division, including the Postbank retail unit, where he led a restructuring of the German branch network and pushed investments in digital banking channels to modernise the franchise.[2][3] His operational track record and reputation as a problem-solver led to his appointment as co-deputy chief executive in March 2017, signalling that he was a likely successor for the top job.[2][14]
Chief executive of Deutsche Bank
🧑💼 Appointment as CEO. In April 2018, following the dismissal of chief executive John Cryan after a string of losses, Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board promoted Sewing to chief executive officer, making him the first German-born manager to lead the bank as sole CEO since 2002.[4][2] His background in risk management, audit and home-market retail banking was seen as well suited to a group struggling with high costs, reputational damage from past scandals and uncertainty over its strategic direction after years of expansion in investment banking.[3][14]
✂️ Radical restructuring. From the outset Sewing framed his mandate as a return to the bank’s traditional strengths and “back to basics”, and in July 2019 he unveiled one of the most sweeping overhauls in Deutsche Bank’s 150-year history, including a full exit from equities trading, the creation of a non-core “bad bank” to wind down tens of billions of euros of unwanted assets and a plan to cut around 18,000 jobs, roughly a fifth of the workforce.[7][3] The restructuring hit employees particularly hard in London and New York, where images of traders leaving with cardboard boxes drew global attention, but Sewing argued that the painful retrenchment was necessary to secure the bank’s long-term survival and to unleash what he called its “full potential”, describing the changes as a “restart for Deutsche Bank”.[7][3]
🤝 Standalone strategy. In parallel with these cuts, Sewing explored a politically sensitive merger with rival Commerzbank in early 2019, amid pressure from some German policymakers to create a national banking champion, but he ultimately broke off the talks after concluding that the execution risks outweighed the potential benefits.[7] Instead he committed Deutsche Bank to an independent turnaround, saying the group needed “discipline, focus and balance” across its businesses and noting that, unlike some predecessors, he had no emotional ties to the high-risk trading operations he was shrinking.[3] His strategy centred on refocusing the bank on serving German and European corporate clients, private and commercial customers and asset-management clients while maintaining a more tightly defined capital-markets franchise.[3]
Turnaround and financial performance
💹 Return to profitability. The restructuring produced a sharp financial hit in 2019, when Deutsche Bank reported a net loss of about €5.3 billion largely due to restructuring charges, but under Sewing the group subsequently returned to sustained profitability, posting a net profit of €624 million in 2020 and €2.5 billion in 2021, its highest earnings in a decade.[2][3] Over the following years the bank delivered several consecutive profitable results, in contrast to the run of losses between 2015 and 2017 that had raised questions about its viability.[3]
🧮 Cost discipline. Sewing placed heavy emphasis on reducing operating costs and simplifying the organisation, cutting adjusted expenses from around €24.6 billion in 2017 to roughly €20.3 billion in 2022 and improving the cost-to-income ratio from about 93 per cent to 75 per cent, the best level since 2009.[3] Headcount fell by around 11 per cent between 2017 and 2023, from approximately 97,500 employees to about 86,700, as the bank streamlined its footprint while still investing selectively in technology and growth areas.[2][3] Sewing has said that one of his first goals as chief executive was simply to achieve an absolute reduction in costs over a full year, a target he regards as symbolically important for changing behaviours.[3]
⚖️ Legacy issues and stability. Alongside restructuring, Sewing moved to resolve legacy legal cases involving benchmark-rate manipulation, mis-sold mortgage securities and anti-money-laundering failures, reducing the litigation overhang that had weighed on Deutsche Bank’s capital and reputation.[3][2] By 2023 Euromoney argued that the bank’s resilience “would have seemed unlikely” at the time of his appointment and named Sewing its “Banker of the Year”, noting that the March 2023 turmoil in European banking, triggered by the collapse of Credit Suisse, served as a striking validation of his strategy when Deutsche Bank weathered market rumours and quickly regained investor confidence.[3] During that episode the bank’s share price briefly fell sharply on speculation about its health, but regulators, clients and Germany’s chancellor publicly affirmed their trust in the institution, and Sewing took the rebound as confirmation that the turnaround had taken hold.[3]
📈 Market valuation. Deutsche Bank’s improved performance under Sewing was reflected in its market value: from a trough of around €20 billion in 2018, the bank’s market capitalisation climbed to roughly €25 billion by the end of 2023 and about €33 billion by late 2024, while its share price reached its highest levels in more than a decade by 2025.[8][9] Although he acknowledges that “some of the toughest work is still to be done”, Sewing has argued that the group is now positioned as a “balanced” global bank combining a leading home-market role with selective international strengths.[3]
💶 Chief executive pay. As the head of a DAX-listed financial institution, Sewing receives remuneration that is high by German standards but relatively restrained compared with the packages of some international investment-bank chiefs. In 2023 his total compensation was about €8.7 million, and Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board approved an increase in his target pay to €9.75 million for 2024, a figure that includes base salary and variable incentive components, much of which is deferred and linked to multi-year performance targets.[17] Like many European banks, Deutsche Bank applies caps and deferrals that mean its chief executive is not necessarily its highest-paid employee; in 2024 several top performers in trading and investment banking earned more than Sewing.[17]
🪙 Personal investment. Sewing has accumulated personal wealth over more than three decades in finance, but he has not featured on public rich lists, and detailed estimates of his net worth are not published. He has, however, publicly committed to investing a “substantial” portion of his own pay into Deutsche Bank shares, announcing in 2019 that he would regularly buy stock in the bank as a sign of confidence during a period when its share price was at record lows.[18] Subsequent regulatory disclosures showed him holding more than 70,000 shares by early 2019, and he has continued to add to his stake, aligning his personal finances closely with the bank’s long-term performance.[18][19][20]
🏛️ Industry offices. In addition to his role at Deutsche Bank, Sewing holds several positions in business associations. In April 2021 he was elected president of the Association of German Banks, the main lobby group for private-sector institutions in Germany, succeeding another Deutsche Bank executive and giving him a central role in the sector’s policy discussions.[2] He also sits on the advisory board of the Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Union, a pro-business organisation associated with Germany’s centre-right political party, where he contributes to debates on economic strategy and regulatory policy.[2][3]
Leadership style and personal life
🏠 Family and privacy. Sewing is known for maintaining a relatively low public profile in his private life. He married his long-time partner Barbara, with whom he has four children, but in December 2020 he announced that the couple were separating, and he has since continued to co-parent while keeping family matters largely out of the spotlight.[2] His approach mirrors common norms among senior German executives, who often draw a sharp line between professional responsibilities and domestic life.[5]
🎾 Sporting interests. Outside work, Sewing’s main passions are tennis and football: he continues to play tennis regularly and remains an enthusiastic follower of the Bundesliga, in particular Bayern Munich, which he has supported since youth.[13] Friends and colleagues have described him as approachable and somewhat self-deprecating, and his long-time colleagues at Deutsche Bank nicknamed him simply “the Christian”, reflecting an informality that contrasts with some of the hierarchy traditionally associated with investment banking.[15][13]
🧭 Management philosophy. Sewing’s leadership style reflects his own path from apprentice to chief executive: he is regarded as hands-on, detail-oriented and numbers-driven, often delving directly into risk reports and balance-sheet data rather than relying solely on summaries.[15][3] Shortly after becoming chief executive he urged employees to adopt what he called a “hunter mentality” (“Jägermentalität”) to speed up decision-making and actively seek business, arguing that the bank had become too slow and risk-averse.[13][3] At the same time he has stressed integrity and cultural renewal, saying that the bank had “lost its balance” in previous decades and that rebuilding trust with regulators, clients and the public was as important as restoring profitability.[3][12]
🪑 Personal style. Commentators often contrast Sewing’s understated personal style with the more flamboyant image sometimes associated with investment bankers: his Frankfurt office is reported to be decorated mainly with family photographs and modest sports memorabilia, and he has shown little interest in conspicuous consumption.[15][14] Raised in a provincial business family, he has been described as embodying Westphalian pragmatism, frequently reminding colleagues that “we have it in our own hands” when discussing the bank’s prospects, an expression of his belief in discipline, accountability and long-term effort over quick fixes.[13][3]
Controversies and challenges
🪓 Restructuring backlash. Sewing’s turnaround of Deutsche Bank has been accompanied by controversies and criticism, particularly around job cuts. The 2019 restructuring, which led to the elimination of around 18,000 positions, produced striking images of staff leaving offices with boxes of personal belongings and raised concerns about morale and the bank’s ability to retain talent.[7] Sewing acknowledged the human cost but argued that the reductions were essential to restoring the bank’s competitiveness and long-term viability.[7][3] His decision to walk away from merger talks with Commerzbank, favoured by some political figures as a way to create a national champion, initially drew criticism from commentators who saw it as a missed opportunity, though the subsequent success of the standalone strategy led many to view the move more positively.[7][3]
🕵️ Legacy scandals. Sewing has also had to manage the continuing fallout from misconduct that took place at Deutsche Bank before he became chief executive. In late 2018 police raided the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters in connection with money-laundering investigations linked to the Panama Papers, reviving public scrutiny of past compliance failures, although the underlying activities dated back several years.[7][2] Particular attention focused on a “mirror trading” scheme operated out of the bank’s Moscow office between 2011 and 2015, which moved billions of dollars out of Russia in violation of anti-money-laundering rules; at the time Sewing was head of internal audit, raising questions about how the transactions had gone undetected.[2][3] Deutsche Bank later stated that Sewing had “no direct or indirect involvement” in the specific audit that missed the misconduct, and he has since overseen significant investments in compliance, risk and anti-financial-crime functions.[2][3]
🙋 Shareholder scrutiny. During the early years of the restructuring some shareholders were sceptical that Sewing’s measures would be sufficient, particularly as Deutsche Bank’s share price languished at record lows in 2019 and 2020.[18][8] His public pledge to invest part of his own remuneration in bank shares was both a symbolic gesture and an attempt to signal alignment with investors.[18] As profitability improved, the supervisory board extended his contract ahead of schedule to run at least until 2026, but Sewing has repeatedly cautioned that the bank is “certainly not where I can relax” and that continued discipline is required to bring returns fully in line with peers.[2][3]
🌩️ Market turbulence. One of the most acute tests of Sewing’s tenure came in March 2023, when fears about the health of several European banks following the forced takeover of Credit Suisse briefly spilled over to Deutsche Bank, triggering a sharp sell-off in its shares despite solid capital and liquidity ratios.[3] Sewing and his team opted for a relatively calm communication strategy, avoiding dramatic announcements and stressing the fundamentals, while authorities publicly underlined that Deutsche Bank was sound; the episode subsided within days and has since been cited by supporters as evidence of the bank’s regained resilience.[3][4] Sewing later remarked that in banking “you can never completely let your guard down”, highlighting the constant risk of confidence shocks in the financial system.[3]
Public positions and industry advocacy
🛡️ Opposition to extremism. As his national profile has grown, Sewing has increasingly used his platform to comment on broader social and political developments in Germany. In 2023 he joined a group of prominent blue-chip chief executives who publicly warned that the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) posed a “grave danger” to democratic freedoms and to Germany’s attractiveness as a business location, arguing that racism and intolerance had no place in an open, globally oriented economy.[10] He urged companies and citizens to “unite against extremists” before they could undermine social cohesion and investor confidence, remarks that drew both praise for their clarity and criticism from those who preferred that business leaders avoid direct political statements.[10][21]
🤲 Support for diversity. Sewing has also been an outspoken supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within Deutsche Bank and in the corporate sector more broadly. In 2023 and 2024, as some political actors in Europe and North America challenged DEI programmes, he reiterated that the bank stood “firmly behind” its diversity and inclusion agenda, describing gender, ethnic and cultural diversity as integral to its strategy rather than a matter of fashion or political correctness.[11] He has pointed to the positive impact that a more diverse management board has had on decision-making and innovation, placing Deutsche Bank among a group of international companies whose leaders have publicly defended DEI against calls for retrenchment.[11]
🌱 Climate and ESG. On environmental issues, Sewing has aligned Deutsche Bank with international efforts to combat climate change, arguing that global banks “play a crucial role in climate protection” by financing sustainable investments and helping to engineer the transition to a climate-neutral economy.[12] Under his leadership the bank has pledged to reduce financed emissions and to mobilise billions of euros for green financing, positioning itself as a key intermediary in Germany’s energy transition, while civil-society groups continue to press for faster progress.[12][3] Sewing has linked these themes to his concern about populism, warning that environmental and social instability can erode economic opportunity for younger generations and ultimately threaten the foundation on which institutions like Deutsche Bank depend.[21][10]
Legacy and assessment
🧑🎓 From apprentice to CEO. Observers often highlight Sewing’s career trajectory as unusual among leaders of large listed companies: unlike many of his international peers, he does not hold a traditional university degree or MBA but instead rose from a teenage bank apprentice to the top of the same institution, supplementing his professional training only with the part-time banking diploma from the Bankakademie.[5][2] This path has made him one of relatively few chief executives of DAX companies who have spent virtually their entire careers within a single firm, and it has reinforced his image as a “company man” deeply rooted in Deutsche Bank’s culture.[14][3]
⏳ Continuity of leadership. After a turbulent period in which Deutsche Bank cycled through several chief executives in quick succession, Sewing’s appointment and early contract extension to 2026 signalled a desire for greater continuity at the top of the organisation.[2][3] If he serves out his term he will become one of the bank’s longer-serving leaders in recent decades, giving him more time than some predecessors to embed cultural and strategic changes and to test whether his “balanced bank” model can deliver returns consistently above the cost of capital.[3]
🧱 Assessment. Commentators generally credit Sewing with having stabilised Deutsche Bank and steered it away from the crisis narrative that surrounded it in the mid-2010s, even as questions remain about its long-term profitability and competitiveness.[3][4] The Financial Times has described him as “a company man going back to basics”, encapsulating his strategy of reconnecting the bank with its traditional strengths in German and European corporate and retail banking while imposing stricter discipline on risk-taking and costs.[14] Euromoney, in naming him Banker of the Year, argued that the successful navigation of market turmoil in 2023 showed how far the institution had come under his leadership, while Sewing himself maintains that only sustained performance over many years will determine his ultimate legacy.[3]
References
- ↑ "The Number of CEOs Doubling Down on DEI Is Growing". Business Insider.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 "Christian Sewing". Wikipedia (German). Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35 3.36 3.37 "Banker of the Year 2023: Advantage Sewing – How Deutsche Bank's chief executive saw strength in a crisis". Euromoney. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Deutsche Bank's retreat to Germany gets tepid welcome at home". Reuters. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 "Christian Sewing". Munzinger Biographie. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Christian Sewing bio". Young Factor. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 "Deutsche Bank to axe 18,000 jobs worldwide in radical restructuring". The Guardian. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Deutsche Bank hits decade high as Sewing's strategy pays off". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 "German blue-chip CEOs denounce rise of far right". Reuters. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 "The number of CEOs doubling down on DEI is growing". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 "Deutsche Bank issues climate statement". Deutsche Bank. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 "Porträt: Ex-Azubi mit Jägermentalität: Deutsche-Bank-Chef Sewing". Nordbayerischer Kurier. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 "Christian Sewing, a company man going back to basics". Financial Times. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 "Christian Sewing: Der Mann aus dem Maschinenraum". Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Christian Sewing". Single Resolution Board. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Deutsche Bank boss Sewing earns almost ten million euros". MarketScreener/Reuters. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Deutsche Bank boss backs own turnaround with share purchases". Financial Times. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Deutsche Bank stock soars 14% as investor takes stake". Associated Press. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 "We stand for values". Ford of Europe. Retrieved 2025-11-20.