Meet Pam Kaur: HSBC Holdings’ first female CFO in its 160-year history

In a historic move by the 160-year-old corporate and institutional banking giant HSBC Holdings, insider Pam Kaur (60) was named the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on October 22—the bank's first female executive in this position, reports said.

A Reuters report said Kaur replaces Georges Elhedery, who vacated the post after taking over the reins as CEO earlier this year.

“We had a strong bench of internal and external candidates to choose from, and Pam was the exceptional candidate to recommend to the Board,” Elhedery said in a statement from the company.

Who Is Pam Kaur?

An insider, Kaur was HSBC's chief risk and compliance officer. She joined the bank in April 2013 as group head of internal audit. Kaur was said to be a favourite for the role since September, as per Reuters and Bloomberg reports.

According to the HSBC website, she was appointed Head of Wholesale Market and Credit Risk and Chair of the new enterprise-wide non-financial risk forum in April 2019. In January 2020, she was appointed Group Chief Risk Officer and assumed responsibility for Compliance in June 2021. She is also a Group Managing Director and a member of the Group Executive Committee.

She qualified as a chartered accountant (CA) at Ernst & Young and began her career in internal audit at Citibank, according to her profile on HSBC's website.

“She has extensive experience creating and looking after large teams across different regions and has performed many senior roles in audit, business, compliance, finance and risk management at other global financial institutions. She has also worked with regulators and supervisory boards across the world,” the profile reads.

Kaur’s former appointments include Global Head of Group Audit for Deutsche Bank; Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of the Restructuring and Risk Division, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc; Group Head of Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering, Lloyds TSB; Chief Compliance Officer, Citigroup International; Global Director of Compliance, Global Consumer Group, Citigroup; and non-executive Director of Centrica plc. She also serves as a non-executive Director of Abrdn plc. 

Kaur has an MBA in Finance and a BCom (Hons) from Punjab University in India. She is a Fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Future of HSBC

In addition to Kaur's appointment, HSBC announced that effective January 1, 2025, it will streamline the bank into four distinct businesses — the Hong Kong unit, the UK unit, the corporate and institutional banking unit, and the international wealth and premier banking unit.

HSBC is consolidating its commercial banking operations, excluding the UK and Hong Kong, with its global banking and markets business. The company said the new corporate and institutional banking unit will also incorporate the predominantly wholesale banking activities in the Western markets region, which include the UK non-ring-fenced banks, Europe, and the Americas.

“The new structure will result in a simpler, more dynamic, and agile organisation as we focus on executing against our strategic priorities, which remain unchanged,” CEO Elhedery said in a statement.

HSBC employs around 2,14,000 people and has been cutting “duplicate roles” to reduce its businesses in the Western markets — Canada, France, and the United States — and instead focus on Asia and markets where it has scale.

(With inputs from Agencies)