May 4 (Bloomberg) -- When Brady Dougan takes over Credit Suisse Group today, he'll be the first American to run the Zurich-based bank and the only chief executive officer in a decade to succeed someone who wasn't ousted.

Dougan, 47, follows Oswald Gruebel, a 63-year-old German, who doubled Credit Suisse's earnings since 2004. Unlike his three predecessors who had to craft strategies to repair missteps made by the person they replaced, Dougan's challenge will be to avoid making mistakes.

``His job is to stick to the strategy,'' said Mark Glazener, a fund manager at Rotterdam-based Robeco, which holds almost $110 million of shares in Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank. That means adhering to the plan devised by Gruebel, who's retiring after 38 years at the company, and ``executing growth in wealth management, keeping stability in investment banking and reducing costs,'' Glazener said.

Dougan, an Urbana, Illinois, native who works 16-hour days and runs marathons, was promoted after leading Credit Suisse's biggest division, the investment bank, for three years. His willingness to follow-through on Gruebel's plans may enable him to avoid the pitfalls and expansion initiatives that waylaid former CEOs Lukas Muehlemann and John Mack.

``A large portion of our global success is based on our Swiss heritage,'' Dougan said today at the annual shareholders meeting. ``Even if an American runs this company, Credit Suisse remains true to its roots.''

Credit Suisse struggled for more than a decade to meld its New York-based First Boston Corp. investment banking unit, London-based Credit Suisse First Boston and the Swiss banking and wealth management divisions.

`One Bank'

Gruebel, a former bond trader who was forced into retirement by Muehlemann in 2002 and brought back at the end of that year, unveiled a ``One Bank'' strategy in 2006 to lift revenue and lower costs by making the company's three main divisions share clients and expenses. He also sold the Winterthur Insurance Co. unit, which Muehlemann acquired in 1997 for 14.7 billion Swiss francs ($12.1 billion).

Gruebel, who was orphaned in World War II and fled communist East Germany when he was 10, oversaw a 104 percent increase in Credit Suisse's stock during the past three years, beating bigger Zurich-based rival UBS AG.

``We know that Brady Dougan will handle Credit Suisse's reputation, heritage and capital with care,'' Chairman Walter Kielholz said today at the annual meeting before Dougan spoke.

Dougan ``has to make this work as any change in strategy would increase the risk,'' said Espen Furnes, who helps manage 40 billion kroner ($6.7 billion) at Storebrand Asset Management in Oslo. ``I would like them to continue with it.''

Insider-Trading Damage

His promotion comes a day after U.S. prosecutors accused a 37-year-old Credit Suisse banker in its New York offices of giving insider-trading tips on pending acquisitions to investors. The employee, Hafiz Naseem, was arrested yesterday.

Credit Suisse said in a statement yesterday that it ``immediately brought the activities of this employee to the attention of the relevant authorities.''

While profitability at Dougan's securities unit and the private bank, led by Walter Berchtold, 45, have improved, the fund management division under David Blumer, 38, has failed to meet investor expectations.

``Asset management has been underperforming,'' said Steven Maxwell, who helps oversee $203 billion and holds Credit Suisse shares at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in Edinburgh.

Credit Suisse Asset Management, known as CSAM, has been losing executives and assets since the beginning of last year. Revenue at the unit, the company's smallest, increased 3 percent in the first quarter, compared with 8 percent growth at the private bank and 14 percent in investment banking.

Credit Rating

CSAM's first-quarter revenue was hurt by a 10.4 percent drop in equity funds under management and lower investment gains, the company said May 2. CSAM had an 85 million-franc gain in the year-earlier quarter from the sale of assets in an emerging market fund.

Fitch Ratings said in March that it may lower the credit rating of CSAM's London unit because the departure of senior executives and fund managers leaves the firm with less experienced staff. Departures since November include the head of U.K. fixed income, two co-heads of the multi-manager business, and the European head of credit, Fitch said.

CSAM said last week that Mark Burgess, who ran the fund- management unit in Europe, resigned and would be replaced by Gary Withers from Aviva Plc's Norwich Life division. London-based Aviva is the U.K.'s biggest insurer.

Mack's Contract

``There has been a lot of change there,'' said Lesley Ann Hodges, a fund analyst at Standard & Poor's in London. ``I would hazard they are not particularly happy.''

Dougan will be Credit Suisse's fourth CEO since 1997. Muehlemann left in 2002 after his strategy of mixing banking and insurance foundered. He was replaced by Gruebel and Mack, who rose to co-CEO by axing 10,000 jobs at the investment bank.

Gruebel took sole control in 2004 when Mack's contract wasn't renewed by the board after a disagreement over whether the company should consider a merger. Mack is now chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest U.S. securities firm by market value.

Dougan will be the Swiss bank's first solo chief executive officer from the U.S. He is the youngest of five siblings born into an Irish Catholic family in Urbana. When he was seven, the family moved to Murphysboro, a farming and coal mining town 300 miles (483 kilometers) south of Chicago.

Bankers Trust

He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1982 after attending a program that allowed him to get a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's of business administration in just five years. Dougan worked weekends and evening shifts in the controller's department at Central National Bank of Chicago, which later became part of ABN Amro Holding NV.

Dougan joined Bankers Trust Corp.'s investment banking department after graduating, then moved to the new derivatives unit. Derivatives are financial obligations whose value is derived from a security or benchmark.

He transferred to London and then to Tokyo, where he built the firm's bond underwriting division at the age of 24. He became proficient in Japanese in less than a year and married a Japanese woman, with whom he had two children during 15 years of marriage. They are now divorced.

In Japan, he got to know Allen Wheat, who oversaw Bankers Trust's capital markets division, and the two would sometimes jog around Tokyo's Imperial Palace. Wheat in 1990 left for Credit Suisse First Boston, as the company's investment bank was then known, and took a team including Dougan with him. They set up a derivatives unit called Credit Suisse Financial Products.

Dougan's Ascent

Dougan returned to New York in 1993 to help run derivatives in the Americas and global debt capital markets. Over the next decade he ran equities, investment banking and fixed-income. Wheat was ousted in 2001 during regulatory probes of initial public offerings arranged by the firm's former technology banking chief, Frank Quattrone.

Dougan became co-president and then CEO of Credit Suisse's securities unit after Mack's departure.

``I see the kinds of people who sometimes end up in leadership positions,'' he said in a 2005 University of Chicago speech. ``The simple truth is that sometimes they're more focused on their own success than that of the organization. Today, that's a losing proposition.''

To contact the reporter of this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.netDavid Clarke in Edinburgh at dclarke3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 4, 2007 08:14 EDT