TOP 100 | LEADERS

Title: Chief Executive Officer Company: HSBC Holdings Industry: Banking

The CV reads like an airport thriller. Beirut-born and fluent in five languages, a trader who studied Mandarin on sabbatical and returned to run half the bank, Georges Elhedery reached HSBC’ s summit faster than any predecessor and began dismantling the bureaucracy. His restructuring carved the lender into four cleaner businesses pointed at what HSBC does best, connecting East to West and banking the world’ s trade. Washington and Beijing eye the straddle with suspicion, yet the straddle remains the point. He runs the world’ s most political bank with a trader’ s speed.

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