HSBC Holdings Plc unexpectedly appointed Brendan Nelson as its next chair, replacing hard-charging financier Mark Tucker who has led Europe’s largest lender for much of the last decade.
The decision “follows a robust process that considered both internal and external candidates,” the London-headquartered bank said in a statement on Wednesday. Nelson, 76, who had been serving as interim group chair since Oct. 1, joined the board in September 2023.
He takes the reins after the lender struggled to find a suitable external candidate following a shortlist of names that included former politicians and financiers such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Kevin Sneader and Richard Gnodde among others.
The appointment comes as Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery pushes through a massive overhaul of HSBC that’s seen the bank reorganized into four new divisions. The Asia-focused lender is also grappling with ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, a volatile relationship the new chairman will have to help the bank navigate.
HSBC has spent months searching for a suitable replacement for Tucker, who as chair had been behind most of the bank’s major decisions. The 67-year-old announced in June that he would leave at the end of September to take on a non-executive chairman role at Hong Kong-based insurer AIA Group Ltd.
Investors have been closely following the process for signs of what direction HSBC would take once Tucker departs. That’s because he oversaw four CEOs during his tenure at the bank — including the three he appointed — and has wielded the type of hands-on control that most non-executive chairs rarely do.
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“Since assuming the role of interim Group Chair, Brendan has demonstrated his excellent leadership capabilities backed by his strong banking and governance credentials,” said Ann Godbehere, a senior independent director, who led the process.
Nelson had indicated he would not expect to serve out as long a term as his predecessor, in part due to UK corporate governance rules that prevent any independent director serving longer than nine years on a company’s board.
Speaking in December, Elhedery suggested Nelson was unlikely to be a long-term chairman for the bank, telling an audience at the Financial Times’ banking conference that he had “expressed a desire not to do it for the full six to nine years, given the stage of his career.”
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Nelson is a well-known figure in the world of British boardrooms having previously served on the boards of BP Plc and NatWest Group Plc. An accountant by background, he spent more than 25 years working at KPMG where he held various jobs, including global chairman of banking and global chairman of financial services.
“I look forward to continuing to work with the Board, Georges and the wider management team as we deliver on our strategic and financial objectives,” Nelson said in a statement.
