John Bond

Career

John Bond joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation as an international manager in 1961, at the age of 19,

Bond was a director of Ford Motor Company. He has been a governor of the English-Speaking Union, and was chairman of the Institute of International Finance from 1998 to 2003.

On 28 November 2005, HSBC announced that Bond would step down as chairman from May 2006, to be succeeded by the bank's CEO, Stephen Green. It was later announced that Bond would be taking over from Lord MacLaurin as chairman of the British telecommunications company Vodafone. In February 2011 he was succeeded by Gerard Kleisterlee as the Vodafone chairman. Bond became chairman of the mining conglomerate in March 2011 Xstrata.

Personal information He was born in Oxford, and educated at Tonbridge School. His family's roots are in Bristol. Bond failed to gain admittance to Oxford University, so on leaving school he spent his gap year in the US, as an English-Speaking Union scholarship student at Cate School, near Santa Barbara, California, before being given passage on a ship from Long Beach to Hong Kong as a deck hand.

Bond is married to Elizabeth, Lady Bond, with whom he has two daughters and a son. His elder daughter Annabelle Bond is the fourth British woman to have climbed Mount Everest and the woman to have scaled the Seven Summits in the briefest period of time.

He was knighted in 1999 for his services to banking.

In 2005, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, during the International Achievement Summit in New York City.

In 2006, he received the Outstanding Leadership in Business Practices Award for his achievements in propelling HSBC’s growth through a series of outstanding acquisitions in America and Asia, and in creating an internationally recognized global banking brand.

In March 2007, at the European Business Awards, he was given a lifetime achievement award.