Steve Suarez
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SteveSuarez
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Past role

HSBC

Twenty years, three continents, and an innovation programme built inside one of the world's largest banks.

  • Global Head of Innovation
  • Financial services
  • Transformation
  • Risk
  • 20 years

At a glance

Final role
Global Head of Innovation, Global Functions
Timeline
2003 — 2023 (20 yrs)
Locations
Chicago · Paris · London
Scope
Finance, Risk & Compliance
Peak remit
22 countries · 450+ FTE

Overview

Twenty years at HSBC, beginning as Senior Vice President for Business Services in the Greater Chicago area and finishing in London as Global Head of Innovation for Global Functions. In between: Regional Head of Change Delivery for Europe, Global Head of Risk & Financial Crime Compliance Transformation, and Global Head of Risk Transformation, Innovation and Cloud Services.

The Europe role covered change delivery across 22 countries and more than 450 FTE spanning France, Germany, Turkey, Malta, Poland and the UK — creating an offshore utility in Kraków to support smaller European markets through mergers, acquisitions and regulatory programmes like FATCA, kicking off the bank's SEPA programme, and building the Technology & Services runbook simulating a Greek exit from the Euro.

The innovation years are the ones the rest of the career is built on. Rather than a central team producing ideas, the programme built distributed capability: 387 innovation champions mobilised as a volunteer network, an idea crowdsourcing platform called IdeaHub that drew over 500 submissions and turned 56 of them into production implementations, and a cloud accreditation programme built with Google that HSBC colleagues accessed free while the market paid $150 a seat.

The Risk Nanodegree closed the loop — a one-year programme in digital transformation, technology and innovation that graduated over 835 colleagues across Risk and the wider group, then was replicated for Compliance and Finance. That is the difference between running innovation as a department and building it as a literacy.

Milestones

  1. Joined as Senior Vice President, Business Services — Greater Chicago Area.
  2. Delivered CML Servicing flagship initiatives for a combined ROI of over $34 million.
  3. Managing Director, Regional Head of Change Delivery Europe — 22 countries, 450+ FTE.
  4. Global Head of Risk & Financial Crime Compliance Transformation.
  5. Global Head of Risk Transformation, Innovation and Cloud Services.
  6. Global Head of Innovation, Global Functions.
  7. Left HSBC after twenty years.

By the numbers

20 yrs
At HSBC
387
Innovation champions mobilised
500+
Ideas submitted to IdeaHub
56
Production implementations delivered
835+
Risk Nanodegree graduates
$34M
ROI — 2007 flagship initiatives

Gallery

London — Global Head of Innovation, Global Functions
London — Global Head of Innovation, Global Functions
Hosting the Global Risk Innovation event, with keynote speaker Eileen Burbidge
Hosting the Global Risk Innovation event, with keynote speaker Eileen Burbidge
IBM Quantum System One — HSBC's first formal step into quantum computing
IBM Quantum System One — HSBC's first formal step into quantum computing
Oxford Fintech Programme, Saïd Business School — guest speaker, March 2022
Oxford Fintech Programme, Saïd Business School — guest speaker, March 2022

Press & coverage

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