Mr Knight will re-locate from London to Toronto and assume his new duties on 1 June. He joined the UK subsidiary of SG Warburg, UBS’s predecessor, in 1994. During his career at UBS Investment Bank, Mr Knight has worked in New York and Hong Kong in addition to London.

He has previously been the head of the industrials team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, head of Latin American investment banking, and co-head of the Americas metals and mining team.

"Canada has been a profitable contributor to UBS's global operations and we see a number of opportunities to grow all of our businesses here," Mr Knight said in a statement. "I also see Toronto becoming a bigger centre for the metals and mining business of UBS's investment bank."

Mr Knight began his career at business law group McCarthy & McCarthy, now McCarthy Tétrault, in Toronto. He then moved to Tokyo to practice international corporate law before joining Nomura Securities. He went on to become a senior banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London and Moscow before joining UBS. 

UBS has offices in over 50 countries, with about 38 per cent of its employees working in the Americas, 34 per cent in Switzerland, 15 per cent in the rest of Europe and 13 per cent in Asia Pacific. The company employs more than 75,000 people around the world.