BS People: Stuart Milne

Bagpipe aficionado to lead HSBC in India

Stuart Milne, the new chief executive of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in India, loves to play the bagpipe and is equally passionate about Rugby. Yet, it isn’t just his hobbies that are different. His academic background hardly resembles that of a banker in pinstripes.

He graduated with honours in modern Arabic studies from the University of Durham in England.

Milne joined HSBC in 1981 in the United Kingdom. Since then he has worked across businesses in the European, West Asian, American and Asian markets. Prior to his appointment as the chief executive of HSBC in India he was the country manager for the bank's businesses in Japan.

In that role, he served as the president and chief executive of the bank there as well as chairman of HSBC Securities (Japan) and chairman of HSBC Global Asset Management (Japan) KK.

In India, the mandate for Milne is to complete some of the unfinished tasks and build on "the good work" of his namesake and predecessor Stuart A Davis.

Davis is moving to a new role within the HSBC group following his three-year stint in India. Under him, India was the sixth most profitable market for HSBC after Hong Kong, China, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Canada. In 2011, the bank's pre-tax profit from India business expanded to $813 million from $679 million a year ago. The bank aims its pre-tax earnings to touch $1 billion in 2013.

"I am pleased that in the three years that Stuart Davis has been in India, HSBC has secured its position among the biggest and most profitable foreign banks in the country...His (Milne's) appointment to the executive committee in Asia reinforces the high profile (nature) of our India business," Peter Wong, chief executive officer of the bank in the Asia-Pacific region, said.

For Milne, while achieving the profit target is a priority, he will also have to oversee HSBC's acquisition of the retail and commercial banking businesses of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in India. The deal is still pending the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) approval.