What does it take to renew a 350-year-old bank?

To attend the event, please register here: https://go.esmt.berlin/Todays-Global-Leader-Franz-von-Metzler-registration

Bankhaus Metzler has been in continuous family ownership for more than 350 years. That history gives particular weight to a question many established companies face: how do you preserve independence, long-term judgment, and trust while renewing a business for a different generation of clients, employees, and markets?

Franz von Metzler joined Metzler in 2014 and has been a member of the executive board since 2023, with responsibility for asset management. He represents the twelfth generation of the family, working within a governance model that separates ownership, supervisory oversight, and operational management. It makes for an unusually practical setting in which to ask what responsible renewal actually requires.

In a moderated conversation with journalist Astrid Frohloff, Franz von Metzler will discuss:

- What carries forward from his family’s leadership, and where the next generation sets its own course
- How clear roles between family ownership, supervisory oversight, and operational management make renewal possible
- What younger talent needs from a career in financial services, and how the culture of an established institution has to evolve How a private bank can make sound choices about new technology, including artificial intelligence, while retaining the human judgment on which trust depends
- The role of private banks in pensions and retirement security

The evening will be opened by Jörg Rocholl, president of ESMT Berlin and chair of the advisory board of the German Federal Ministry of Finance. Drawing on his work as a member of the federal pension commission, he will set the wider context: how Germany can bring long-term saving, investment, and retirement security into better balance.

Audience members will have the opportunity to put their questions directly to Franz von Metzler.