HSBC Holdings Plc’s wealth unit head Nuno Matos is leaving the bank weeks after missing out on the chief executive officer’s role.

The head of the London-listed lender’s wealth and personal banking divisions - which accounted for 41% of the group’s next revenues last year - would step down after nine years at the bank, where he had rapidly risen through its ranks to become one of its most senior executive. He will be replaced by Barry O’Byrne, who currently leads HSBC’s global commercial banking business.

Matos will support O’Byrne in an advisory capacity through 2024 and will leave the group in 2025 after a period of gardening leave, HSBC said in a statement on Thursday.

In other sweeping management changes, HSBC also announced that Elaine Arden, group chief human resources officer, and John Hinshaw, group chief operating officer, would also be leaving the bank. Arden will be replaced by Aileen Taylor, group company secretary, while Hinshaw’s role will be split between two executives, the bank said.

The departure of Matos, 56, comes after Georges Elhedery was elevated to the CEO position. Matos was seen as a strong candidate for the CEO’s role, having received a series of promotions that propelled the former Banco Santander SA executive from CEO of HSBC’s Mexican business to head of its largest division. The Portuguese native also relocated from London to Hong Kong as part of the bank’s focus on Asia.

His departure will see the lender lose one of its most high-profile executives, who frequently posted on LinkedIn highlighting initiatives at the bank.

HSBC’s CEO search followed Noel Quinn’s unexpected announcement in April that he was retiring after almost five years in the job. The process, helmed by chairman Mark Tucker, involved the screening of internal and external candidates. Ultimately Matos lost out to Elhedery, who was widely seen as the favorite for the top job given his experience both as chief financial officer and co-head of global banking and markets.

“It seems like natural succession,” said Rupak Ghose, an independent analyst. “Matos will look for CEO roles and others had been there for a while. It gives room for the new CEO to bring in a new team.”

Together with Elhedery, Matos was among a bench of senior managers seen as being next in line to lead the bank after HSBC indicated in late 2022 that it was developing several of its executives as CEOs in-waiting.

Matos joined HSBC in 2015 and made a rapid ascent up the company’s corporate ranks, jumping from one senior post to another as he set his sights on the CEO role. For about four years, he ran HSBC’s business across Mexico. His time at Banco Santander saw him serve in various roles in different countries starting 1994, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also had a stint as an analyst at Portugal’s central bank.

In recent years, Matos was the driving force behind several initiatives from HSBC to take on a raft of fintechs that have attempted to displace mainstream financial institutions. Most recently, he launched Zing, an in-house foreign exchange payments service open to non-HSBC customers, aimed at challenging the likes of Wise Plc and Revolut Ltd.

As CEO of HSBC’s wealth and personal banking division, Matos has been directly involved in most of the bank’s bolt-on acquisitions that have focused on bolstering wealth management in Asia. During his tenure, the bank bought wealth operations in India and Singapore, and recently, it completed the takeover of Citigroup Inc’s retail wealth portfolio in China.

  - Bloomberg