HSBC Holdings Chairman Mark Tucker will retire by the end of 2025 after eight years that saw three CEO changes, a massive restructuring in 2020 and another one in 2024.
“It has been a great honour and privilege to lead HSBC as Chair,” Tucker said in a prepared statement. “With the strong foundations laid over the last eight plus years, I am very confident that under [CEO Georges Elhedery’s] leadership, HSBC will go from strength to strength.”
The board has started its search for Tucker’s successor, and the process is being led by Senior Independent non-executive Director Ann Godbehere. Tucker was HSBC’s first-ever chairman to be selected from outside the company.
Godbehere credited Tucker with providing clarity and guidance to the management team, streamlining the board and overseeing improvements to the bank’s succession and governance processes.
“Mark also provided excellent stewardship of the Bank through the COVID-19 pandemic, and most recently, led the Group CEO succession process,” Godbehere said. “Very importantly, he has also deepened the Group’s relationships with key clients, regulators and investors around the world.”
Tucker will remain a strategic adviser to Elhedery and the board while the search for a permanent chair continues. HSBC will likely first look for a successor on its present board, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. Former Citi President Jamie Forese, who joined the board in 2020, is a top candidate, the sources said.
Elhedery is the fourth group CEO to serve under Tucker.
The first group CEO, Stuart Gulliver, was replaced in 2018 by John Flint, whom Tucker ousted in 2019 after Tucker, according to Citi analyst Ronit Ghose, “clearly lost confidence in [Mr Flint’s] ability to navigate the tougher outlook faced by HSBC given the geopolitical and macro uncertainties, structural headwinds for global banks, and digital disruption challenges.”
Noel Quinn followed Flint, and Tucker oversaw Quinn’s replacement by Elhedery last year.
Also under Tucker, HSBC faced calls from its largest shareholder, Ping An Insurance Corp., to separate its Asian operations from its Western ones, a measure which failed to gain sufficient shareholder support in 2023. The company’s recent restructuring, which shifted business away from the West to focus more deeply on Asian markets, stirred up questions among analysts, however.
“This is not either a precursor or intention or preparation for any split,” Elhedery said in an October earnings call, shooting them down.
