HSBC Promotes David Sabow to Lead Venture-Banking Efforts

(Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc promoted David Sabow to lead the global expansion of its venture-banking business, after he led that team in the US and more than doubled headcount there in the past two years.

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Sabow, based in San Francisco, was named global head of HSBC Innovation Banking, a division that provides deposit accounts, loans and other services to startups and venture-capital funds. He reports to Gerry Keefe, head of banking for Europe and Americas.

Sabow joined HSBC in April 2023, when the company scaled up its venture-banking business. He was previously at Silicon Valley Bank, which failed earlier that year during the regional-banking crisis. He was one of about 40 US bankers hired by HSBC after the British lender acquired the UK subsidiary of SVB and brought in roughly 700 bankers.

“We have ambitions for this to be a multibillion-dollar business,” Sabow said in an interview, adding that its competitive edge includes a broad range of products as well as a global reach and financing capabilities backed by the balance sheet of the UK’s largest bank.

Globally, the innovation-banking unit generated $700 million in revenue last year.

In addition to the US, Sabow now has accountability for venture-banking operations in the UK, Europe, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, China and Singapore, and will work closely with the local leaders. The innovation-banking business in the UK remains a standalone entity led by the unit’s chief executive officer, Emily Turner.

“I always just expected that international needs occurred much later in a company’s life cycle,” Sabow said, adding that he’s now seeing that even companies early in their funding rounds can have far-flung operations in places like India and Eastern Europe.

Even as tariff wars and geopolitical conflicts risk shaking up the premise of globalization, Sabow said international commerce is “an all-weather phenomenon.”

HSBC can leverage the diversity of its business lines and geographical footprint to hedge against isolated events, he said. While tariffs will add friction to trade in certain markets, companies may start looking for partners in other markets, where HSBC also has a presence.

HSBC has been expanding its venture-banking business even as it shrinks some of its other operations. The bank is in the middle of a restructuring of its investment-banking business to cut costs.