Andy Halford can certainly be considered a risk-aware finance leader. When he joined Standard Chartered as CFO in July 2014 the global bank had already been fined $640m of penalties two years earlier after it was found to have breached US sanctions on Iran.
But then a month after his arrival the bank was handed a further fine of $300m from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) over lapses in its money-laundering procedures. Since then the bank, under Halford and the other members of the management team, has delivered strong returns while at the same time mitigating risk.
In making the right calls to deliver investment returns, Halford says: “A large part of making a business like this work is forming judgements as to which parts one should push hard on and which ones should one retain a [minimum] presence in,” he says. Given the constant ebb and flow of economies it is often hard to make the right call when risk profiles can change so much, says Halford, who was previously the CFO of Vodafone-another global group.
“A more difficult market today may actually be a great market in a few years down the line. We had difficulties in our Korean market three…
