Sergio Marchionne, who has recently taken on the job of CEO of the struggling Chrysler Group on top of his array of Fiat Group commitments, will be trimming his workload slightly by giving up his role as senior independent director for troubled Swiss banking giant UBS.

According to a statement issued by UBS today, Marchionne has "decided not to stand for re-election to the Board of UBS at the annual general meeting which will take place on 14 April 2010, the press release adding that he (and Peter Voser, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell in London, who will also quit the UBS board at the same time) would "like in future to focus on their current demanding management positions and have therefore decided not to seek any further mandates at UBS."

Marchionne has a busy schedule of jobs this year, he is the CEO of the Fiat Group, as well as being the CEO of Fiat Group Automobiles, the car manufacturing division of the Group, while he now has his new role as CEO of Michigan-based Chrysler Group which Fiat took over control of, as well as an initial 20 percent stake, in the summer. Marchionne is also the Chairman of CNH Case New Holland, the Fiat Group's agricultural-and-construction equipment manufacturing dicvision.

He was elected to the Board of Directors of Swiss banking group at their annual general meeting in 2007 and was appointed independent vice chairman and senior independent director a year later. Marchionne is also a member of the governance and nominating committee and of the strategy committee. There was much talk last year, when incumbent chairman Marcel Ospel was ousted and UBS was staggering under enormous losses as a result of bad investment strategies that were exposed by the global financial crisis, that Marchionne would quit the Fiat top job and take over as chairman of the bank due to his turnaround expertise and UBS pushed very hard to get him into the role. The Swiss bank has been one of the hardest hit financial institutions anywhere in the world by the effects of the financial crisis: it had to write off US$50 billion during the subprime crisis, seek a fresh infusion of capital no less than four times, as well as having to ask for government assistance.

"I would like to thank the outgoing board members Sergio Marchionne and Peter Voser for their strong contributions to the management of our firm," Kaspar Villiger, Chairman of the Board of UBS, said today. "With their comprehensive economic and entrepreneurial competence they supported UBS in difficult times and provided significant input to the stabilization and the successful initiation of the turnaround of our company," he added.