Managing Associate General Counsel, Trust & Fiduciary Services Greater Hong Kong Area

Some careers grow faster than others.

If you’re looking for a career that will give you plenty of opportunities to develop, join HSBC and your future will be rich with potential. Whether you want a career that could take you to the top, or simply take you in an exciting new direction, HSBC offers opportunities, support and rewards that will take you further.

Global Legal plays an important role in protecting the Group’s reputation by helping to future-proof the organisation through robust legal risk and issue advisory. Responsible for providing comprehensive legal advice to senior management and all global businesses and functions, the team offers a diverse range of legal skills, jurisdictional experience, and practice specialisms across all countries and territories in which our businesses operate.

We are currently seeking a high calibre professional to join our team as a Managing Associate General Counsel, Trust & Fiduciary Services

About The Role

The Head of Legal, Trust and Fiduciary Services provides expert and professional legal advice, guidance and support to the Trust and Fiduciary Services (TFS) business to ensure that the legal and reputational risks it faces are identified, reported and mitigated. TFS operates as a full service Global private trust business within the Global Private Bank, offering trust and wealth structuring, intergenerational succession and philanthropic planning, and family and business governance to high-net-worth individuals and their families. TFS operates several fiduciary support units, the principal one being in Hong Kong with smaller offices in Singapore and the Channel Islands. This role will report to the Deputy General Counsel, IWPB Asia.

Key Responsibilities

Provide legal advice, guidance and support to TFS and exercise oversight of all TFS Legal activity

To act as a member of the IWPB Legal wider leadership team, contributing as required on regional & global issues and leadership actions

To be a trusted adviser to the business, including the Head of Trust and Fiduciary Services by ensuring that commercially sensitive, pragmatic and practical legal support and advice is provided in a cost-effective manner.

Ensure the legal risks of the TFS business are managed within risk tolerance, and assist the business and other functions to procure the same in relation to regulatory and reputational risk

Manage the legal team for TFS within the private banking legal team and develop them, including through appropriate training, coaching and other development initiatives

Communicate a clear vision for TFS Legal that is aligned to the overall Private Bank and wider HSBC vision, values and goals, and inspire and engage team members to create an inclusive, high performing, customer-centred culture

Provide clear, accurate, succinct and risk-mitigated advice within relevant timescales and, in doing so, adopt a commercially oriented, proactive and practical approach

Support business objectives, strategy and initiatives within TFS and wider Global Private Banking risk tolerance, and represent Legal at senior management and governance forums

Share skills, experience and best practice with the Legal team, and proactively identify legal risk trends and increase legal risk awareness within the TFS and private banking businesses

Advise on and participate in planning, decision-making and documenting new products, and changes in procedures, systems and policies

Identify changes in relevant laws affecting the TFS business and initiate appropriate action

Manage and oversee all litigation and complaints matters relating to the TFS business, both claims against HSBC and disputes within trust structures.

Establish close, mutually supportive working relationships with key TFS stakeholders, Global Private Banking Legal and the wider Global Legal function

Manage engagement of external law firms in relation to both HSBC and structure spend on legal services

To be the accountable lawyer to the executives of TFS on all material legal issues that the business faces

To represent Legal and be an active member of relevant TFS senior management and governance forums

Requirements/Qualifications

Qualified legal professional with no less than 10 years’ post-qualification experience in the trust business in a common law jurisdiction

Excellent knowledge of trust and wealth structuring, intergenerational succession planning and family governance, as well as common risks and issues affecting trust companies

Excellent knowledge of common law trust law and, where relevant, legislation, regulations, codes and guidelines relevant to private trust business

Clear understanding of the role of TFS within the Global Private Bank family and the wider HSBC Group of businesses

Significant experience in working closely with a variety of stakeholders across business and external advisors

Significant experience managing a specialized team of lawyers and professionals

Lateral thinking/problem solving ability

Being able to deal with new and unexpected situations

Ability to prioritize workloads in terms of legal risk and commercial consideration.

Maintain knowledge of HSBC Group operations and policies.

Ability to think independently being mindful of maintaining an appropriate balance between management and mitigation of legal risk and business efficacy.

Deepening knowledge of areas of specialty with ability to take a view as to how law is developing in order to advise client and reach a solution.

Enhanced relationship management skills with higher levels of management inspiring confidence of customers/stakeholders

Ability to balance the need for further analysis and the need for a timely decision given commercial pressures

Ability to navigate multiple stakeholders with competing priorities and under time pressure

Strong oral and written communication and inter-personal skills

Core Expectations

LEADERSHIP

Vision and customer focus:

Inspire others to deliver on Legal’s purpose and HSBC’s ambition

Drive high-performance and accountability:

Set clear expectations and hold yourself and others accountable for high-performance with care. Give and seek honest feedback, coach others to grow, and commit to continuous learning

Lead through change:

Lead with resilience and pace. Stay curious, apply a first principles approach, simplify, and own issues end-to-end with an enterprise-wide view to deliver outcomes

COLLABORATION & TEAMWORK

Collaborate and partner:

Work across Legal and functional teams, markets, and businesses to break down silos, align priorities, and deliver good outcomes

Nurture a healthy and inclusive culture:

Build trust and psychological safety so diverse perspectives and constructive challenge achieve better decisions and outcomes

Succeed together:

Connect early to identify and resolve issues. Recognise the wider team’s contributions and celebrate success

COMMERCIAL

Partner with the business:

Work closely with the business to provide advice that’s practical and commercial

Maintain customer and commercial focus:

Understand HSBC’s strategy, products and services, and role model customer-first thinking

Deliver efficiently:

Align priorities to strategy and use resources wisely. Use AI and other tools to deliver cost-effective services

RISK & CONTROL

Role model a strong risk culture:

Demonstrate and inspire others to prioritise sound judgement

Enable smart risk-taking:

Help stakeholders take smart risks, by applying expertise and understanding the broader risk landscape to achieve well balanced outcomes

Identify, escalate, and mitigate risk early:

Act quickly to protect customers and the bank. Monitor new risk areas including AI and other risks

EXPERTISE

Demonstrate technical excellence:

Show best-in-class subject

matter expertise, including emerging developments in your area

Act as a strategic trusted advisor:

Understand your stakeholders’ objectives so you can exercise good judgment and communicate legal issues early and clearly to a non-legal audience

Innovate and learn:

Role model a growth mindset by championing innovation and curiosity. Stay current on emerging developments and their strategic impact

AI AND TECHNOLOGY

Build AI fluency:

Understand where AI fits into your work, keep upskilling and share learnings and best practice

Adopt AI responsibly:

Balance experimentation and adoption of AI with the need to evaluate, validate, and challenge outputs – AI doesn’t replace judgement

Build data literacy and readiness:

Demonstrate discipline in maintaining data necessary to apply AI to the work you do

Your local internal application policy should be followed. For internal applicants in Hong Kong with less than twelve months in their current role, please also obtain and enclose the endorsement from your current line manager in the application as well; for more information, you can visit HRDirect and search for content "HKG: Do I need any approval to look for internal career opportunities?".

Opening up a world of opportunity.

HSBC is committed to building a culture where all employees are valued, respected and opinions count. We take pride in providing a workplace that fosters continuous professional development, flexible working and opportunities to grow within an inclusive and diverse environment. Personal data held by the Bank relating to employment applications will be used in accordance with our Privacy Statement, which is available on our website.

Issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited