Roughly a year after the short-lived tenure of Benoit Savoret as chief executive of its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Macquarie Group has turned to David Fass for the role. His broad experience from a decade at Deutsche Bank, not to mention his love of yacht racing, leave him well-placed to make waves as he sets about charting the Australian bank’s growth.

Forty-eight year-old Fass, a graduate of Michigan University who has an MBA from the Stern School of Business, cut his teeth in banking at PaineWebber in New York, starting out as an equities trader before moving onto the private placements debt team.