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Priorities and Goals

Our vision is to become the world's most admired bank.

We believe our ability to serve clients globally with an integrated service offering is a strong competitive advantage. Early in the financial crisis we took decisive action to reduce our risk exposures and to become more capital-efficient. Building on the momentum we have established, we aim for further gains in market share while strengthening our geographic footprint and collaboration within the integrated business model. We expect to leverage our programs for operational excellence and efficiency. To achieve our goals, we are focused on the following priorities.

Client Focus

We put our clients' interest first. We aspire to be a consistent, reliable, flexible and long-term partner focused on clients with complex and multi-product needs, such as ultra-high-net-worth individuals, large and mid-sized companies, entrepreneurs, institutional clients and hedge funds. By listening attentively to their needs and offering them superior solutions, we empower them to make better financial decisions. Against the backdrop of significant changes within our industry, we implemented plans across the organization to ensure that we consistently help our clients realize their goals and thrive. We continue to strengthen the coverage of our key clients by dedicated teams of senior executives who can deliver our inte grated business model. On the back of a strong capital position and high levels of client satisfaction and brand recognition, we achieved significant gains in market share. Our strong client momentum is well recognized. We were awarded "Best Private Banking Services Overall" by Euromoney, "Bank of the Year" by International Financing Review and "Top 3 Megabank" by Fortune magazine's "Most Admired Companies" survey.

Employees

We continue to undertake efforts to attract, develop and retain top talent in order to deliver an outstanding integrated value proposition to our clients. Our candidates go through a rigorous interview process, where we not only look for technical and intellectual proficiency, but for people who can thrive in and contribute to our culture. Credit Suisse is above the external benchmark for employee engagement in the financial services industry. We systematically review our talent and identify the right developmental opportunities based on individual and organizational needs. We increasingly promote cross-divisional and cross-regional development, as well as lateral recruiting and mobility. Valuing different perspectives, creating an inclusive environment and showing cross-cultural sensitivity are key to Credit Suisse's workplace culture. We have expanded our organizational understanding beyond traditional diversity and inclusion to leverage our differences to fully engage the workforce. Through our own business school, we train our leaders, specialists and client advisors in a wide range of subjects to ensure that knowledge and competence of our employees supports the needs of our clients and our strategy. We take a prudent and constructive approach to compensation, designed to reflect the performance of individuals and the firm and closely align the interests of employees with those of shareholders.

Collaboration

We help our clients thrive by delivering the best of our products and services seamlessly across our organization and regardless of divisional boundaries. In order to drive, measure and manage collaboration between our divisions, we have established a dedicated governance structure within the office of the CEO. In 2009, we recorded collaboration revenues of CHF 5.2 billion, with a target of CHF 10 billion annually by 2012. Since the inception of our collaboration program in 2006, we have built a strong track record of delivering customized value propositions. We believe this is a significant differentiator for Credit Suisse. We have observed increasing momentum in collaboration initiatives, including tailored solutions for wealthy private clients by Investment Banking, a new suite of managed investment products developed by Asset Management for Private Banking and strengthened client management coordination by our new alternative investments distribution team in Asset Management with the securities distribution team in Investment Banking. Benefitting from our programs for cross-divisional management development and lateral recruiting, we believe collaboration revenues including cross-selling and client referrals to be a resilient generator of both revenues and assets.

Capital and Risk Management

While the prudent taking of risk in line with our strategic priorities is fundamental to our business as a leading global bank, we maintain a conservative framework to manage liquidity and capital. Throughout the financial crisis we were a supplier of overnight funding to central banks, and we did not receive any emergency support provided by governments and central banks. As a result of the successful implementation of our client-focused and capital-efficient strategy, we further reduced our risk-weighted assets by 14% during 2009 to CHF 221.6 billion, contributing to the improvement of our Tier 1 ratio of 300 basis points to 16.3%. With further balance sheet reductions we achieved a leverage ratio of 4.2%, already complying with the Swiss minimum requirements to be implemented by 2013. We continue to deploy capital in a disciplined manner based on our economic capital framework, assessing our aggregated risk taking in relation to our client needs and our financial resources.

Efficiency

We continue to strive for top-quartile efficiency levels, while being careful not to compromise on growth or reputation. For our core activities we target a cost/income ratio of 65%. Efficiency measures implemented with strong involvement of senior management have generated cost savings while helping to build an efficiency culture. During 2009 we opened a fifth Center of Excellence (CoE) in Mumbai, with an initial focus on supporting Investment Banking. The new CoE will complement our four existing CoEs in Pune, Raleigh Durham, Singapore and Wroclaw. Since the CoE initiative was established in 2006, more than 8,000 roles have been deployed, improving productivity. We continue to focus on our Operational Excellence program, which has strengthened our culture of continuous improvement and client focus.

To track our progress and benchmark our performance, we have defined a set of key performance indicators for growth, efficiency and performance, and risk and capital to be achieved across market cycles.

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