Chirantan Barua

Chira Barua, who was a partner at McKinsey & Company, has taken over as the Group Head of Strategy at HSBC.

Barua, who was born in Assam, has experience of working nearly seven years with McKinsey & Company, the largest strategy consulting firm of the world.

Prior to his joining HSBC, headquartered in London, Barua was a partner in McKinsey’s London office.

Earlier, he was an Associate Partner of McKinsey.

According to a report, in between the two spells, Barua served a senior research analyst for UK banks at Bernstein in London, a US sell-side research and brokerage firm.

Barua, in his earlier career, played a major role in strategy, management and operational sections at Standard Chartered Bank and Citigroup.

With 235,000 staff in 64 countries, HSBC is one of the globe’s largest banks and the largest in Europe in terms of assets.

At HSBC, Barua has been given responsibility of forging strategy that will help the bank deal with the aftermath of Covid19 and develop a future-proof business model as the bank navigates a growingly competitive landscape.

The ‘Global Banking Report’ of McKinsey & Company was co-authord by Barua in 2019 which the banking industry was warned that nearly 60 per cent of banks are not generating the cost of capital needed to remain in long-term business.

During the launch of the report, Barua said: “A majority of banks globally may not be economically viable.”

At HSBC, Barua will assess which markets and areas the bank should focus on over the next 5 to 10 years.

Another report quoted Barua as saying: “I think thr group will focus a bit more on southeast Asia, including Singapore”.