瑞士悲剧：两位CEO为何相继自杀

    夏末的苏黎世有一种乡村田园般的宁静，不时有鸟儿掠过湖面，不久它们就将越过阿尔卑斯山，迁徙到南方过冬。然而，在8月26日，瑞士金融中心如画的宁静却被打破。世界最大保险公司之一苏黎世保险集团（Zurich Insurance Group）的首席财务官皮埃尔•沃蒂耶，被发现在其位于苏黎世近郊的高档住所内自缢身亡。沃蒂耶仪表堂堂，有着马拉松运动员一般的体格。如今，53岁的他留下了两个已经成年的孩子和他的妻子，撒手人寰。他的妻儿至今还记得，他在派对上展示的出色舞技让他看上去对生活充满热爱，而不是痛苦。

    除了留给人们的印象之外，沃蒂耶还留下了两封遗书，在商界引起了轩然大波，也让苏黎世保险集团（全球500强排名第123位）阵脚大乱。其中一封遗书是写给家人的，而另外一封是写给公司的。乍一看，第二封遗书像是一份商业公告，打印的内容开头写着：“致相关人士”。可实际上，这是对欧洲商界一位重量级人物的无情控诉：他就是苏黎世董事会主席及前德意志银行（Deutsche Bank）CEO约瑟夫•阿克曼。沃蒂耶称，董事会主席傲慢霸道的作风让他绝望——这种“有毒的”关系让他的自杀看起来成为一种符合逻辑的逃避。这封遗书用英文写成，这是沃蒂耶与阿克曼在一起交流时经常使用的语言。苏黎世双周刊金融杂志《Bilanz》引用看过遗书的人的话称：“它是措辞激烈的斥责。沃蒂耶批评阿克曼的侵略性，说他是他见过的最差劲的董事会主席。”自杀事件几天之后，65岁的阿克曼便离开了苏黎世，他告诉董事会，虽然沃蒂耶的指责没有根据，但这还是让他觉得自己不再适合担任董事会主席职位。

    接下来的几周，金融界的许多人都在考虑一些深层次的问题。首先，一家大公司怎么会注意不到一位颇受爱戴的元老级高管有自杀倾向？沃蒂耶在苏黎世高层中拥有很大的影响力，他在公司任职17年，而阿克曼在苏黎世任职仅有1年时间。公司正在对此事进行内部调查，并很快任命阿克曼的副手汤姆•得•斯旺担任董事会主席。公司CEO沈文天在9月3日的电话会议中向分析师保证，苏黎世目前状况良好。

    然而，不考虑沃蒂耶所面临的痛苦，依然还有更深层次的问题：尤其是在经济困难时期，面临爆炸性的冲突，跨国公司高管面临的压力是否变得不可承受？而利润动机是否正在践踏高管的人性？很明显，许多不如意的高管往往会选择辞职，但自杀并不常见。而且在瑞士，这个问题尤其令人沉痛，因为就在沃蒂耶结束自己的生命几周前，瑞士电信（Swisscom ）CEO卡斯滕•斯洛特也在瑞士首都伯尔尼附近的家中自杀。两人自杀的原因惊人的相似，瑞士电信高层的个性冲突令斯洛特难以忍受。有人猜测，高管的生活是否被错误地扭曲。比约恩•约翰森说：“压力和速度正在急速上升。”约翰森在苏黎世创办了以自己的名字命名的猎头公司，而且他与沃蒂耶和阿克曼都是老相识。

    Zurich in the late summer is a place of bucolic serenity, where birds swoop across the lake, before beginning their migration South over the Alps. But on August 26, the picturesque calm in Switzerland's financial center was blown apart. Pierre Wauthier, the 53-year-old chief financial officer of one of the world's biggest underwriters, Zurich Insurance Group (ZURVY), was found hanging in the Wauthier family home, in the small upscale Zurich exurb of Walchwil. With clean-cut looks and a marathon-runner's build, the 53-year-old executive left two grown children and a wife, Fabienne, whose memory of his party-dance skills suggested a zest for life, rather than anguish.

    But Wauthier left something else, too, which has sent shock waves through the business world and left Zurich Insurance (No. 123 on the Global 500) reeling: Two suicide notes, one to his family, the other to the company. At first glance, the second looked like a business communiqué, typewritten under the heading, "To Whom It May Concern." Instead, it was a damning indictment of a towering figure in European business: Zurich's chairman and former Deutsche Bank CEO, Josef Ackermann. Wauthier said he'd been driven to desperation by the chairman's overbearing style -- a relationship so toxic, that suicide seemed a logical escape. Written in English, the language the two men typically spoke together, it was "a violent reproach," says Zurich's biweekly financial magazine Bilanz, citing several people who have read it. "It castigated Ackermann as aggressive and referred to him as the worst chairman he had ever experienced." Within days of the suicide, Ackermann, 65, was gone from Zurich, telling the board that although Wauthier's accusations were baseless, they rendered his position untenable.

    In the weeks since that tragic summer's end, many in the financial world have been left to ponder profound issues. First, how did a major corporation fail to notice that its longtime, much-liked executive was hurtling toward suicidal despair? Wauthier was deeply enmeshed in Zurich's top ranks, having spent 17 years at the company -- nearly 16 years longer than Ackermann. The company is conducting an internal probe into the affair and moved quickly to name Ackermann's deputy Tom De Swaan as its new chairman. In a September 3 conference call, CEO Martin Senn assured analysts Zurich was in good shape.

    But leaving aside Wauthier's torment, deeper questions remain: Has life at the top of these global behemoths become an unbearable pressure cooker, given to explosive conflicts, especially during tough economic times? And are profit motives trampling on human ones among executives? Clearly, many unhappy executives have opted simply to resign, and suicide remains a very rare event. Yet in Switzerland, those questions are especially poignant, since Wauthier killed himself just weeks after Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter took his life at his home near the capital Bern, after enduring a personality conflict at the top that seems chillingly similar. Some now wonder whether things have gone badly awry with executive life. "The pressure and speed are increasing dramatically," says Bjorn Johansson, founder of a Zurich-based executive recuitment firm named for him, and a long-time acquaintance of both Wauthier and Ackermann.