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HSBC chief executive Georges Elhedery has announced the latest set of leadership changes as part of his plan to restructure and simplify the bank, which includes the departure of its private banking head.
Annabel Spring, who leads global private banking and wealth, and is one of HSBC’s most senior female executives, is leaving at the end of the year.
Her role will be split between Gabriel Castello, who has been named interim chief executive of global private banking, and Lavanya Chari, head of wealth and premier solutions.
Spring’s departure is part of a broader reworking of HSBC’s international wealth banking division, one of the four units created as part of a new organisational structure announced by Elhedery in October.
The division, which is led by Barry O’Byrne, will continue to run three global businesses that are made up of private banking, asset management and insurance.
“While we are introducing these changes at pace, the process has been measured, thoughtful and fair,” Elhedery wrote in a statement. The Financial Times has reported that HSBC would target the lender’s expensive layer of senior bankers in its cost-cutting efforts.
Spring’s departure comes just a few weeks after Céline Herweijer, the group sustainability officer, announced her plans to leave the bank one month after HSBC sent out a statement that said she would remain in her role and report to new chief financial officer Pam Kaur.
HSBC also named former Deutsche Bank executive Adam Bagshaw, who joined HSBC in 2020, as global head of investment banking. His role sits within the bank’s corporate and institutional banking division, led by Michael Roberts.
Elhedery, who took over the reins from Noel Quinn in September, unveiled plans to simplify the bank’s organisational structure earlier this year. It included the creation of four units, instead of the three it previously ran, two of which would either fall into eastern or western markets.
The move drew comparison to demands by Chinese insurer Ping An, which has a stake in the bank, for the lender to carve out its Asia operations through an activist campaign that was rejected by shareholders last year.
As Elhedery embarks on top management changes within HSBC, a decision on the bank’s next chair is yet to be made. The bank has started its search to find a replacement for Mark Tucker, who will hit his nine-year term limit in 2026, according to people familiar with the situation.
Tucker, a British executive who lives in New York, was the first outsider to take on the role in the lender’s 159-year history.
His departure will come at a crucial time for the bank, which will have to navigate heightened geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing following Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office.
