Career
John Bond joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation as an International manager in 1961, at the age of 19, his original application having been turned down before the intervention of the father of an old school friend whose father was a broker for the bank. He spent his early career in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, before returning to Hong Kong to manage the bank's investment banking arm Wardley in the 1980s. From there, he was posted to New York, New York, to head the bank's United States operations (which included Marine Midland Bank), before being appointed HSBC Group CEO in 1993. Bond took over as Group Chairman in 1998 with the retirement of Sir William Purves.
During Bond's tenure as chairman, HSBC extended its reach well beyond its major franchises in Hong Kong and Britain. From 1998 to 2005, HSBC spent $47bn on acquisitions, including those of Republic National Bank, Credit Commercial de France, Bital Bank, Bank of Bermuda, and Household International.
He was Chairman of HSBC's Board when the Household acquisition was approved in 2003 by the Board. Household was a consumer finance business, an established business in the USA serving the 40% of the US population who are sub-prime; other major players were GE, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and AIG.
During his Chairmanship HSBC invested over USD3 billion in China by buying 20% stakes in Bank of Communications and Ping An Insurance, as well as investing in HSBC's proprietary branch network. He chaired both the China Development Forum and the Mayor of Shanghai's International Business Leaders' Advisory Council and joined the Advisory Board of Tsinghua School of Economics and Management.
Bond led HSBC to devoting considerable resources to corporate social responsibility, recognizing the bank's responsibilities to the environment and the communities in which it operates. He was also behind HSBC's strong interest in the demographic changes being wrought by an aging world.
His management style is modest, and in interviews Bond preferred to discuss HSBC rather than himself. He attributed his rise to the top of HSBC as a result of being in the right place at the right time. In an interview in 2005, he noted being driven more by a fear of failure, of letting down shareholders, customers and staff, rather than a sense of personal aggrandizement.
Bond was a Director of the Ford Motor Company. He has been a governor of the English-Speaking Union, and was chairman of the Institute of International Finance from 1998 to 2003.
On 28 November 2005, HSBC announced that Bond would step down as chairman from May 2006, to be succeeded by the bank's CEO, Stephen Green. It was later announced that Bond would be taking over from Lord MacLaurin as chairman of the British telecommunications company Vodafone. In February 2011 he was succeeded by Gerard Kleisterlee as the Vodafone chairman. Bond became chairman of the mining conglomerate in March 2011 Xstrata.
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