Greg Guyett's gone from HSBC: "No one is surprised"
Greg Guyett, the man who aspired to hire "200 dealmakers" in two years at HSBC only last March, has decided that being the bank's "chair of strategic clients" is not worth it. Five months after landing his esteemed new role, Guyett has gone to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, where he will be 'First Vice President," 'Head of the Financial Services Group,' and a member of the executive committee.
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The EBRD is a development bank. With €16.6bn of banking investments in Europe, Asia and Africa, it's owned by state shareholders plus the European Investment Bank and the EU. It has the worthy aim of making "economies in its regions competitive, well governed, green, inclusive, resilient and integrated."
In his new role, Guyett will be leading all the EBRD's teams "responsible for all banking, advisory and policy activities." That's not entirely comparable, though, to running HSBC's global investment bank arm, which was his position until October 2024, when he was ejected from HSBC's executive committee and displaced by ex-Citi bankers Michael Roberts and Gerry Keefe, both of whom are corporate bankers by trade.
At one point, Guyett was even in the running to become CEO of all of HSBC, but his former co-head Georges Elhedery was chosen instead. It's not clear why he was forsaken, but Guyett didn't go to Hong Kong when he was supposed to during COVID. Nor did he go to Hong Kong when Elhedery was on sabbatical. Guyett then championed work from home at a time when the industry was moving in the other direction. His demise at HSBC could therefore be read as a warning against putting quality of life before promotions.
Senior bankers at HSBC say Guyett's exit was all but inevitable, and that "chair of strategic clients" was a face-saving position when Guyett was demoted from running the investment bank. "He was just waiting for the next role," says one.
Some senior ex-HSBC people suggest that Guyett was always the wrong choice for running HSBC's investment bank: he previously spent three decades at JPMorgan, but had been working in corporate roles for two years when HSBC hired him. "We recruited him from a bank in Pasadena that no one had ever heard of," observes one former colleague. "He was Tucker's hire," he claims, in reference to HSBC chairman Mark Tucker, who is also leaving.
Guyett's exit means he won't be present at HSBC's corporate events this summer. It does, however, mean that he might be commuting between London and Paris with the EBRD. At least that's not as bad as commuting to and from Hong Kong.
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