[11] Orcel attended the Lycée français Chateaubriand in Rome for secondary school, at his mother's request, so he could learn French in addition to his native Italian.

[11] While a university student, he reportedly skipped class, as attendance was optional, and went backpacking in South America before returning to take his final exams.

[14] Upon his graduation, Orcel was hired by American investment bank Goldman Sachs in 1988, aged 25, to work in their fixed income business in London.

[8] Orcel called the bank and offered to explore the possibility of a merger with a comparable company and brought them to Merrill Lynch a week later.

[19] The deal was orchestrated by Orcel after he brought in Fortis and Santander to execute a three-way consortium bid for ABN Amro.

[19] Months later, the oncoming financial crisis surfaced, reducing the capital buffers of banks all over the world, causing major damage to RBS and forcing the UK Government to seize control of it.

[24][25] His bonus sparked an investigation into executive compensation by the New York Attorney General; no charges were brought forward against Orcel or Merrill Lynch.

[30] Recalled as the "scariest [moment] of his career", he broke through Merrill Lynch's risk limits to secure the deal, drawing widespread industry attention.

[30] In April 2012, Orcel was tapped by Swiss investment bank UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti to lead their sell side and UK operations.

[37] With a focus on return-on-investment (ROI), deleveraging, and cost reduction, Orcel increased majority capital positions while diminishing the size of the bank.

Orcel fired thousands of employees in order to boost profitability, reducing the company's wage requirements by $3 billion.

[13][40] In August 2018, an Investment Bank trainee accused one of the managing directors of UBS of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a social gathering in September.

[42] Orcel appeared on Bloomberg Markets later that day explaining a revamped infrastructure and process of handling sexual misconduct at the company, noting it must be "completely eradicated".

[45] In September 2018, Ana Botín announced that Orcel would lead Spanish commercial bank and financial services company Banco Santander as its CEO, starting early 2019.

[59] Additionally, the bank increased its revenue and capital goals as profits exceeded estimates [60][61] In March 2022, Orcel received criticism over his pay packet of $2.7 million.

"[11] Orcel's personality and management philosophy has been criticized for not facilitating team work, isolating those who do not perform, and being high maintenance.

[68] Multiple profiles of Orcel undertaken by the Financial Times describe him as 'voraciously competitive', capable of "[losing] his temper in a typical Italian way", "[shouting] at people sometimes".

[8] Orcel has repeatedly stated that, due to the competitive nature of banking, one in four (25% of) mergers and acquisition (M&A) bankers do not make it past entry-level positions.

[38][72] He similarly uses European football to describe such strategies, referring to UBS as the "Croatia of investment banking" following the 2018 FIFA World Cup final.

[73] In June 2016, Orcel led an initiative where UBS bankers were granted two hours of "personal time" every week in order to boost work–life balance.

[74] On March 31, 2017, Orcel expressed his affection for shared parental leave and voiced his support for the growing movement in Europe to let fathers and mothers take extended time off of work to be with newly born and young children.

[75] In April 2018 Orcel issued an internal memo to UBS managing directors requiring that they hold 250 to 300 client meetings a year.

[76][77] This memo reportedly initiated a mass exodus of senior investment bank leadership in late 2017, as the latest in a series of "frequently changing strategies".

[76] An unnamed senior executive at the investment bank stated: "[Andrea Orcel] is the best banker I've ever worked with and the worst manager I've ever seen" after the directive hit international presses.

[79] Select accounts asserted that Orcel pursued personal vendettas against detractors, often wishing to "make examples of out [his colleagues]".

[79] Orcel has been called the "Ronaldo of investment banking"[80][81][7] and a "deal junkie"[82][83] by the international press and select British government officials.

"[6] After his move from UBS to Santander was cancelled by the latter in 2019, Metro wrote that "the rupture that followed the meeting turned into one of the bitterest and highest-profile employment disputes in recent European history.

[69] Additionally, Andrea Orcel's legacy in the banking sector is underscored by his significant role in mergers and acquisitions and his leadership at UniCredit.

[25] He was appointed deputy chief executive of VTB Bank in July 2013 and has occasionally worked with Andrea on mutual deals.