HSBC recasts India top brass; Kidwai named group head

17 April 2009

HSBC Holdings Plc has named Naina Lal Kidwai, the group general manager and CEO of HSBC India, as the chairwoman of the group in India, effective 15 April 2009.

Stuart Davis, who was leading HSBC in Australia for the past seven years, will succeed Kidwai as the new CEO in India.

Stuart would report to Kidwai. All the other group companies' CEOs would also report to her.

Announcing the new designations  in Calcutta yesterday, Stephen K Green, the group chairman of HSBC said the compound annual growth rate of banking operations in India for the last three years was 46 per cent.

''So, we decided to appoint an overall country head for all the businesses and a new CEO for banking,'' he said.

''I have to devise a strategy - especially for new businesses like insurance and ILFS Investmart which we recently acquired - nurture them and grow. I need to bring in a basic level of integration in all operations,'' Kidwai said after about her new position.