Chief Shuffle

Mar 04, 2008 (LBO) – HSBC's Sri Lanka and Maldives operations would be headed by Nick A Nicolaou, a senior banker who had been with the group from 1977, the bank said in a statement. David J H Griffiths who headed the Sri Lanka-based HSBC unit will be taking over HSBC New Zealand on April 05.

"Sri Lanka is a country that is rich in culture and has been recognised as a market with great potential," Nicolaou said in a statement.

After joining an international management trainee in 1977, Nicolaou was first posted to Bahrain as a general banking executive from 1978 to 1980.

From 1980-1988 he had served in Hongkong, Japan and Australia. After working at UAE he was again in Hongkong and Taiwan from 1989-1997, and then posted to Canada as senior vice president of Ontario region until 2000.

He was in Japan as chief executive and deputy country manager until 2002 and then in UAE as head of group audit in the Middle East from 2002 to 2005. Nicolaou was then appointed to Kuwait to re-start operations in the country after a 34 year break.