Julian Waldron, the co-head of European equity capital markets at UBS Warburg, will leave the firm this week to become chief financial officer of Thomson Multimedia, the French consumer electronics group.

Waldron, 37, will be based in Paris and sit as the youngest member of the company's executive committee. Hiring a non-French banker to fill such a high profile position is unusual for a company the size of Thomson Multimedia. The company is in the Cac 40 of French blue chips and has a market capitalisation of €12.1bn ($10.4bn).