Diego De Giorgi on redesigning for growth
Our Group Chief Financial Officer discusses navigating global uncertainty, transforming operations – and why cultural leadership is now central to the CFO role.
This article was originally published by IMD. Minor edits have been made per our style guide.
As global trade responds to the pressure of geopolitical friction and economic uncertainty, few institutions are as well positioned to track the changes as Standard Chartered. With deep and long-standing roots in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, we sit comfortably at the intersection of trade, capital flows and wealth creation.
Group Chief Financial Officer Diego De Giorgi is not cowed by the current climate of uncertainty. “First of all, I think we have an advantage in seeing what is happening on the ground across our network, first hand, every day,” he says. “While it is obviously a very fast-moving macroeconomic environment, it’s also a broad source of opportunities.”
The global vantage point: Trade, capital and opportunity
Standard Chartered’s footprint across 54 markets provides an on-the-ground view of how clients are adapting to what De Giorgi describes as volatility compounded by uncertainty. “Markets are generally adept at dealing with volatility. But when you have policy uncertainty [as well], it’s more difficult for markets to adjust,” he explains. As a result, the Bank’s clients, both corporates and investors, are adopting short-term tactics while rethinking strategy.
That dual-track response plays directly to the bank’s strengths in risk management and global connectivity. Its Markets business serves as a “large flow and hedging machine” across currencies, commodities, and rates, while its network supports longer-term capital and investment flows.
De Giorgi emphasises that Standard Chartered today is far from the trade bank in which its 170 year-old history began. “Trade contributes less than 5 per cent of our total revenue. Instead, we are a giant facilitator of flows of capital, of wealth, of services, and of goods,” he says.
This flow-based model has shaped the bank’s strategic priorities. De Giorgi says that Standard Chartered is determined to continue to grow cross-border corporate and investment banking (“our network business”) while doubling down on the pursuit of affluent clients (those with USD500,000–USD5 million in assets) in the high growth markets it calls home. While these are not ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), Standard Chartered sees them as a rapidly growing and underserved segment. “The secular trend of the growth of the middle class in Asia is unstoppable,” says De Giorgi.
Preparing to transform and thrive
These strategic goals are underpinned by significant investment in a business transformation program known as Fit for Growth. De Giorgi is one of four executive sponsors of the initiative, alongside leaders in strategy, risk and technology. What sets the programme apart, he says, is its holistic approach: “We’re trying to reform processes that cut across the organization. It’s a program that aims to make the bank an easier place in which to do business, for clients and colleagues alike.”
Much of this hinges on technology that is impactful, but not necessarily the most eye-catching. “It’s not just deploying AI at what I call the sexy end. Very often, it’s deploying AI in its most fundamental and hard-grafting manifestations,” says De Giorgi.
One example is the rollout of a new platform called ‘Service Bench’, which standardises internal tools and streamlines tech architecture across the bank. De Giorgi likens the Bank’s global operations to a tree that, over the years, has developed numerous offshoots and “bumps.” The service bench platform, he says, helps “prune” the tree, bringing order, consistency and scalability.
“It’s fundamentally a solution where you input what you are trying to do and the system will give you standardised tools based on what you are trying to execute,” he explains. For a bank such as Standard Chartered, operating across more than 50 markets, this consistency is critical. Instead of building one-off, country-specific solutions, teams use shared platforms to develop and deploy applications faster and more efficiently – that in turn are enhanced iteratively.
Even for customer-facing tools, much of the value lies in process improvements that the customer doesn’t see, such as automating compliance workflows. “Know your customer and customer due diligence are some of the areas where we are deploying Service Bench and AI very heavily,” De Giorgi says. “These are areas where automation and big data help a lot.”
By implementing such cross-sectional platforms, Fit for Growth aims to create a bank that is more standardised, simplified, and digitised.
The CFO as leader of change
In De Giorgi’s view, the role of CFO is fundamentally different in banking than in other industries. “If you try to interpret the role as someone who is just the accounting and numbers person, you’re missing a trick,” he explains. “The CFO of a bank is more of a businessperson, because finance is our business.”
This business fluency makes the CFO integral to transformation efforts. But success also demands cultural leadership. “Every transformation is a cultural journey,” De Giorgi says. While the Head of Talent may shape the culture, the CFO ensures alignment of purpose and performance. “If there is a clash between the person that does the culture and the person that needs to deliver the results, you end up undermining the success of the transformation,” he adds.
The clearest signal of success? When transformation reaches the grassroots of the business. “We asked our people to embrace this transformation. We want to hear their ideas,” he says. The transformation programme now comprises over 200 projects, with many budgeted at under USD10 million. De Giorgi views this as confirming they have embedded the initiative into the day-to-day rhythm of the business.
As Standard Chartered reshapes itself to deal with a more complex world, De Giorgi emphasises a blend of financial discipline and cultural ambition. “To me, the sign of a thriving transformation is that it has been embraced,” he says. “And that embrace is shown in the sheer number of projects and the grassroots nature of the change movement we have instilled.”
It’s a model of change that’s less about top-down mandates and more about unlocking the insight and initiative that already run through the organization. That grassroots momentum is now shaping a new, more agile future for Standard Chartered. De Giorgi concludes: “We’re a high growth business in many of the world’s highest growth markets, so to capitalise on such an opportunity we’re creating a future where transformation is not only measurable but also tangible.”