Martin Schlegel a likely candidate to replace Swiss National Bank’s Jordan

I can’t think of a G10 central banker who has been at it longer than Thomas Jordan, he was a deputy at the SNB when the financial crisis started.

In all, he’s been at the central bank for 27 years but the 61-year-old told the SNB yesterday that he wanted to step down as Chairman.

He got the job earlier than expected after Philipp Hildebrand was forced out when his wife was trading CHF and made $64,000 on a trade at the time he was intervening in the market.

Jordan has been a steady hand but his entire tenure has been marked by ultra-low rates, intervention and banking problems, including the collapse of Credit Suisse a year ago.

SNB vice chairman Martin Schlegel is tapped as the most-likely successor. At 47, he would be one of the world’s youngest leaders of a major central bank. He graduated from studying economics in 2003 and joined the SNB that year as a researcher.