When Lisa McGeough joined HSBC in July last year to lead its European investment bank, she faced a task of continuing to turn the business around as she took the reins from bank veteran Philippe Henry, who retired after 32 years at the UK lender.

Europe had felt the brunt of a number of cuts as HSBC rolled out its ongoing three-year transformation, unveiled in February 2020, that will eventually strip out $5bn in costs, eliminate 35,000 jobs and divert capital towards its key markets of Asia and the Middle East. The bank slashed nearly 40% of jobs within its global banking and markets team in Paris in 2020 and also trimmed its European equities team last year.