Bank Appoints New Regional Heads as CEO Georges Elhedery Pushes for Efficiency

HSBC has unveiled a major leadership reshuffle across its Asian operations, assigning additional responsibilities to country heads as part of a broader strategy to reduce costs and simplify management layers.

As part of the restructuring, Peter Kim in Korea and Tim Evans in Vietnam will now oversee banking operations alongside their existing roles as country CEOs, effective 1 March. In Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand, Omar Siddiq, Adam Chen, and Giorgio Gamba will take on dual leadership roles.

In HSBC’s key growth markets of China, India, and Singapore, Zhenyi Tang, Ajay Sharma, and Gilbert Ng have been named as banking heads, reflecting the lender’s focus on these economies.

A new head of banking for international markets will also be appointed to manage Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mauritius, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

These changes are being led by HSBC’s CEO Georges Elhedery, who took the helm in September 2024. Under his leadership, HSBC has been streamlining its structure by combining commercial banking with global banking and markets and scaling back investment banking in Europe and the Americas.

The bank has also been phasing out general manager titles in favour of the managing director rank, aligning with industry standards. Additionally, senior managers were required to reapply for positions within HSBC’s newly formed corporate and institutional banking division.

A bank spokesperson described the revamp as a move towards a more efficient, customer-focused organisation, aimed at accelerating the execution of HSBC’s long-term strategy.