HSBC’s senior bankers hid behind co-head roles, CEO Georges Elhedery says
Since taking charge, he has nearly halved the size of the bank’s operating committee
[LONDON] HSBC’s chief executive officer Georges Elhedery said not enough executives were fully accountable for the performance of their businesses, before he began his radical restructuring of the bank 15 months ago.
Since taking charge of Europe’s largest lender, he has nearly halved the size of its operating committee, getting rid of the co-management roles he thought allowed bosses to avoid responsibility for their decisions.
“We moved from zero per cent (to) single accountability,” Elhedery said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Leaders with Lacqua, which will air in 2026.
“Everything had dual or multiple accountability... now, about 60 per cent of our revenue is generated under single accountability. That’s important.”
Elhedery, whose previous roles included co-head of global banking and markets, said there was still more to be done to make HSBC a simpler and leaner bank. He is continuing a turnaround that has already involved thousands of job losses, the shuttering of several businesses and the merger of others.
“We’re not going to achieve simplification overnight,” said Elhedery. “It’s going to be a journey, and we have to be relentless at that journey, quarter after quarter, month after month until we get the desired outcomes. And that journey is still on. We’re not there yet.”
AI influence
One of Elhedery’s focuses, as he slims down the business, is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into HSBC’s operations.
The Lebanon-born banker said that rolling out AI to the company’s more than 200,000 workers was already well underway.
“Utilisation is not optional, because that’s how people remain relevant in the future workforce five years down the road,” said Elhedery. “I will be monitoring usage, I’ll be monitoring super usage. Those (individuals) will be the most influencing among their colleagues to drive the utilisation.”
HSBC has already provided AI tools to about 170,000 of its employees, embedding the technology in businesses such as its wealth management arm, as well as using it to write and review documents.
Other initiatives include using AI for fraud detection and know-your-customer checks.
“We have more than 100 cases, of which half are live in production,” said Elhedery. “While we as humans will not be replaced by AI, if we don’t know how to embrace it and upskill ourselves using it, we will become obsolete.”
Chinese lessons
Elhedery also talked about his wider leadership philosophy, including his decision to learn Mandarin, which made him the first CEO of the London-headquartered, but largely Asia-focused bank, to speak Mandarin in its 160-year history.
The CEO said that the move stemmed from his six-month sabbatical from the bank three years ago. “I knew if I really wanted to make a leapfrog in my early starts in Mandarin, it needed much more time.”
“If you really want to understand the Chinese way of thinking, the way of reasoning, the way of negotiating or engaging or presenting simply, there is no better way than the pain in trying to learn the language,” he added.
A polyglot who already spoke French and Japanese, among other languages, Elhedery hopes other staff might follow his example and take time out from the bank for their own professional development.
“I encourage all our colleagues to consider this,” he said. “If you want to spend two, three, four decades at HSBC and within that you want to take a little bit of time for yourself, any personal development or professional development, of course we should offer.”
Ruthless restructuring
Earlier this month, speaking at a banking conference in London, Elhedery stressed the need for a “ruthless” approach to rebuilding HSBC.
In his Bloomberg interview, he said that he had drawn on his training as an engineer, when looking at what needed to be done to equip the bank for the future.
“I was definitely ruthless about killing the complexity and the drag on the bank,” he said.
“I think back to my engineering days: entropy is a feature. Things don’t become complex by design, they end up becoming complex by lack of focus. So bringing the focus to the simplification will allow you to start dealing with it.” BLOOMBERG
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