“I have worked with Duncan for a number of years in various roles. He is a high talented Financial Executive with extensive banking experience. He is also a huge advocate of creating a supportive and developing culture. A great colleague to work with.”
Duncan Knowles
Strategic international banking expertise
London, England, United Kingdom
2K followers
500+ connections
London, England, United Kingdom
2K followers
500+ connections
About
Duncan is the author of "Banking Matters: An essential guide to commercial banking in an age of disruption".
Duncan is a strategic thinker with a track record of delivering creative and practical solutions to complex issues in banking-related businesses across the world. He is driven by innate curiosity and passionate about building in-depth understanding from multiple perspectives, with the ability to simplify and contextualise at all levels from the Board of Directors to new hires.
He has worked as an international banking executive for over 20 years in progressively more senior roles covering a variety of markets, business lines and functions.
Duncan’s career has had three distinct phases to date. For the first ten years, he took up leadership roles in the front line of retail banking, trade finance and consumer finance businesses, building both breadth and depth in key aspects of retail and commercial banking. This phase of his career culminated in the successful turnaround of a failing consumer finance firm in Czech Republic.
At the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, he was called on to provide advice and training to senior executives on managing risk across the enterprise (as opposed to measuring risk in silos, a contributory factor to the crisis). As the crisis itself receded, significant weaknesses in banks’ controls became apparent. Duncan’s balance of risk sensitivity and commercial acumen was again called upon, with internal audit leadership roles focused on strengthening the control environment.
In 2014, with digital transformation of retail banking gathering pace, he saw the opportunity to leverage his diverse experience and skill set, and took on a senior leadership role in strategy, including writing the first digital strategy for HSBC’s global retail bank. From here, he took on the challenge of setting up and leading an internal incubator for new capabilities with potential strategic importance. Duncan left HSBC on 31 December 2020.
A global pandemic, shifting geopolitics, macroeconomic uncertainty, and the ongoing digital revolution in financial services make for an extremely challenging environment. Duncan’s rare combination of strategic insight and the ability to execute in a diverse range of situations can help firms to navigate this complexity, to rethink the way they operate, to become more efficient and to strengthen their focus on the needs of their customers.
Experience
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Banking Matters
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Education
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University of Warwick - Warwick Business School
MSc Management Science and Operational Research (Data Science) Distinction
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Volunteer Experience
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Co-Founder, Caltech London Alumni Network
Caltech Alumni Association
- Present 5 years 1 month
Education
Together with Daina Paulikas, I co-founded the Caltech London Alumni Network to bring together UK-based alumni of the California Institute of Technology.
Publications
Recommendations received
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