HSBC names Pam Kaur as first female CFO in bank’s history

The 60-year-old brings a long focus on auditing, risks and compliance across almost four decades of banking career spanning various global lenders. She joined HSBC in April 2013 as internal audit head, coming aboard shortly after the bank admitted to anti-money laundering and sanctions violations and entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Justice department. 

Kaur, who was educated at Punjab University in India, takes on her new role at a challenging time as interest rates fall and amid geopolitical tensions in key markets, including China and Hong Kong. The bank on Tuesday unveiled a broad restructuring across different business lines and geographies as newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery embarks on ambitious cost cuts.

HSBC will have to find a way to shave off $2 billion in costs in order to sustain a key measure of the bank’s profits, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. 

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

Shares of HSBC slipped 0.4% at 1:03 p.m. in London.

With the promotion, Kaur becomes one of the most senior women in banking across Europe. She had been seen as a front-runner for the role, ahead of other candidates including Greg Guyett, head of global banking and markets, Willard McLane, group head of strategy and corporate development, and Kavita Mahtani, the CFO of HSBC’s Europe and Western Markets, Bloomberg previously reported.

Before joining HSBC, she also held compliance and audit roles at Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG. Kaur has served on HSBC’s group executive committee for more than a decade and was named head of wholesale market and credit risk in 2019. 

Her remuneration as CFO will consist an annual base salary of £803,000 ($1.04 million), a fixed pay allowance of £1,085,000 and a pension allowance of £80,300.

She’s eligible to be considered for discretionary variable pay that consists of an annual incentive award up to 215% of base salary, and a long-term incentive award up to 320% of base salary.

“We are welcome to see more and more woman leadership in the market, especially for multi-national financial institutions,” said Melissa Fung, a partner at Deloitte LLP. “This also echoes with the enhancement of board diversity policy under the Corporate Governance Code suggested by HKEX.”

(Updates share price in sixth paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected Kaur’s role in headline.)