Julius Baer, the Zurich-headquartered private banking group, has appointed Heiko Schlag as its new head of private banking in Germany and as a member of the management board, effective 1 January 2011.

Schlag spent the past 19 years working at HypoVereinsbank. serving various private and corporate clients. Most recently, he served as a member of the executive board of private banking for Germany.

Julius Baer has been steadily increasing its operations in Germany since the group first acquired a banking licence in the country in 1989. Julius Baer currently has branches in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, and Stuttgart and the bank has said it will call upon Schlag’s years of experience in the German private banking market to further strengthen its operations in the country.

"Germany is the Julius Baer Group's most important European market in the area of private banking outside our Swiss home market. By strengthening our management team in Frankfurt, we are laying the foundations for the further growth of our operations in this attractive market," Gian Rossi, chairman of the supervisory board, said in a statement.