Vasan, who declined to be interviewed for this story, faces formidable challenges and lingering skepticism from analysts and within the industry.
Chris Wheeler, a London-based bank stock analyst at Mediobanca, has a buy rating on Credit Suisse but thinks the U.S. brokerage should be shuttered.
"There is no way the U.S. business is sustainable," he said. "They're not big enough there. That's the bottom line."
The brokerage force at Credit Suisse Securities (USA) has declined to about 350 from close to 450 three years ago. That is much smaller than competitors such as Morgan Stanley, which had more than 16,000 brokers as of September 30, or the 7,000 at UBS Wealth Management Americas.
Several top brokerage teams have left since Vasan arrived. Many U.S. brokers said they worry that Vasan has no background in the retail brokerage business and fear they will be pushed to dump all but their wealthiest clients.
Further, former executives said, the U.S. business would have been profitable if it had not been weighed down by global corporate expenses for operations, information technology, risk management and other costs allocated from Zurich.
They also say that the cross-marketing strategy being pursued by Vasan has been tried before with little success. Investment bankers, for example, resist entrusting the personal wealth of some of their best clients to brokers. In the past, the parent bank has also offered financing on expensive terms, making loans in the U.S. uncompetitive.
Credit Suisse spokesman Calvin Mitchell said the business under Vasan has been making progress.
"We have focused on accelerating growth in our U.S. private banking client franchise to capture the opportunity in the U.S. market while adapting the business to improve scale and efficiency," Mitchell wrote in an email.
Not Rich, But Ultra-Rich