HSBC renews hunt for board chairman amid struggle to fill shortlist: FT

HSBC is refreshing its search for a new board chairman, the Financial Times reported on Saturday (Jul 19). The development came after the bank could not find enough satisfactory candidates for a final shortlist.

The London-headquartered lender has been seeking a replacement for Mark Tucker, who announced earlier this year that he will stand down by the end of 2025. Tucker has presided over a turbulent tenure marked by multiple changes of the chief executive, a clash with one of the bank’s largest shareholders and a public slap-down from the US government.

HSBC stepped up its efforts to find a successor after Tucker surprised fellow board members with an announcement that he would leave the bank in September to take on a non-executive chairman role at AIA, Bloomberg previously reported. 

A spokesperson for the bank said that the process to appoint a new chairman is underway and that Brendan Nelson, the head of HSBC’s audit committee, will be interim chairman from Oct 1. 

The bank has struggled to develop a shortlist of successors after considering more than 100 people for the role, the FT reported, citing unidentified sources.

HSBC has mulled tapping executives such as Zurich Insurance Group CEO Mario Greco, Goldman Sachs executives Kevin Sneader and Richard Gnodde, as well as Bruce Carnegie-Brown, former chair of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, the newspaper reported.

Some of the potential candidates were unavailable, while others declined when approached, according to the FT.

A spokesperson for Zurich told the FT that Greco was approached by a headhunter and had declined because he was committed to Zurich. BLOOMBERG