Who Is Pam Kaur, HSBC Holdings' First Female CFO In Its 160-Year History

Global banking giant HSBC has appointed British Indian Pam Kaur as its first female chief financial officer (CFO). Kaur is the first woman to occupy that role in the bank’s 160-year-old history. Kaur, an MBA from India’s Panjab University, joins a growing list of women in top global banking roles.

Kaur, upon her appointment, joins the ranks of Citi CEO Jane Fraser, Morgan Stanley CFO Sharon Yeshaya, JP Morgan’s Mary Erdoes, Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak.

Who Is Pam Kaur?

Her appointment comes after nearly 12 years at HSBC, where she held several senior positions, including group chief risk and compliance officer.

In her new role, she will be responsible for overseeing the bank’s financial strategy and operations at a crucial time for the banking sector.

Kaur began her career in internal audit at Citibank and went on to serve in key roles at major financial institutions, including Citigroup, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank.

Before joining HSBC, Kaur held senior positions at RBS as chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the restructuring and risk division. She also led compliance and anti-money laundering initiatives at Lloyds Banking Group.

In her LinkedIn profile, Kaur describes herself as a “passionate supporter of diversity and inclusion” and a global sponsor of HSBC’s Embrace employee network which helps attract, retain and engage a more diverse ethnic and multicultural workforce among the lender’s 225,000 staff worldwide.

Kaur is expected to bring her extensive experience to forge HSBC’s future direction, as well as assist newly-appointed CEO Elhdedery to steer client-facing activities. Elhedery said Tuesday’s reorganisation would help unleash the lender’s full potential.

The newly-appointed CFO is expected to take on the immediate challenges, as well as push for the bank’s efforts to narrow its gender pay gap.

HSBC shares have underperformed peers so far this year, rising 7% versus the European index’s 20% gain despite multi-billion dollar share buyback programmes and consistent dividend growth.