An Audacious 20 Alpine Assault

`I consider myself a hard man. Perhaps that's why I drive the people around me so hard," says Swiss Bank Corp. CEO Georges Blum. "I suppose that is why I am occasionally typecast as a tough guy."

"Occasionally" is putting it mildly. Ever since he took over from his reserved predecessor, Walter G. Frehner, in 1993, Blum has been pushing through a cultural revolution that's shaking his $170 billion, 123-year-old bank to its core. He is trying to shock it out of decades of lethargy and build an American-style global trading and investment bank from scratch. With the likes of J.P. Morgan & Co. and Goldman, Sachs & Co. as his models, Blum's audacious goal is to vault Swiss Bank into "the top bracket" of 10 investment banks he thinks will dominate global finance by the decade's end.