(Bloomberg) -- One of the biggest banking jobs is up for grabs after Noel Quinn’s decision to step down from HSBC Holdings Plc. 

The task of replacing the chief executive officer falls — again — to Chairman Mark Tucker with a formal process already under way to find a successor. Both internal and external candidates will be considered, the bank said in a statement Tuesday.

HSBC is in no rush, since Quinn has agreed to stay while a successor is found. It may need that time to find the rare external candidates with enough experience across the Asian and European markets where it operates. 

The bank has a tradition of appointing CEOs from within its ranks. Analysts at Citigroup Inc. highlighted executives including UK head Ian Stuart and Asia-Pacific co-heads Surendra Rosha and David Liao, alongside external candidates with prior experience at HSBC such as Helen Wong, who is now head of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., and Simon Cooper, who last month said he was leaving Standard Chartered Plc. 

“We would expect any new incoming CEO to adopt a more business as usual approach, focused on organic expansion, following the heavy lifting done during Gulliver and Quinn’s tenures,” the Citi analysts wrote, referring to former boss Stuart Gulliver. 

Here are just some of the potential CEOs-in-waiting. 

Georges Elhedery

Elhedery, 50, has been chief financial officer since January 2023, with a tenure of nearly two decades at HSBC making him a prominent internal candidate to take the top job. 

The Lebanon-born banker took a six-month sabbatical in 2022, when among other things he learned Mandarin. Upon his return, he switched from being co-head of global banking and markets to the CFO position — a move Quinn said at the time was part of HSBC’s long-term succession planning. 

Still, serving in the CFO role is no guarantee of winning the succession race, as Elhedery’s predecessor Ewen Stevenson learned. 

Nuno Matos

Matos, 56, head of wealth and personal banking, joined HSBC in 2015 from Banco Santander SA, and previously worked for the Central Bank of Portugal. 

He’s been based Hong Kong for several years and has been touring the wider region, recently visiting the bank’s operations in Vietnam and the Philippines alongside Tucker, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Barry O’Byrne

Head of global commercial banking since 2020, O’Byrne also offers plenty of outside experience, having joined the firm in 2017 from GE Capital. 

O’Byrne, like Matos, relocated to Hong Kong as part of HSBC’s shift toward growing in Asia. The 48-year-old Irishman has held CEO positions in Italy, France and the UK and served on boards in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Spain during his career, according to HSBC. 

Charlie Nunn

Before he was hired to run Lloyds Banking Group Plc in 2021, Nunn spent nearly a decade at HSBC, including leading wealth and personal banking as well as senior roles in the UK and Hong Kong. Nunn, now 52, worked under Gulliver and later survived the management cull that axed then-CEO John Flint. 

Nunn’s tenure at HSBC overlapped for several years with Tucker, meaning the British executive will be a known quantity to the chairman. 

Amanda Blanc

One of the most senior women in European finance, Blanc is the chief executive officer of insurance group Aviva Plc. She has previously held leadership positions at Zurich Insurance Group AG, AXA SA and the Association of British Insurers. Blanc, 56, also sits on the board of BP Plc. 

Jean Pierre Mustier

Mustier’s name was in the frame the last time HSBC was recruiting for a CEO, only for the French banker to rule himself out. He ran Italian lender UniCredit SpA between 2016 and 2021. The 63-year-old is currently chairman at troubled French tech company Atos SE and Germany’s Aareal Bank AG. 

--With assistance from Donal Griffin, Harry Wilson, Ambereen Choudhury, Aisha S Gani and Katherine Griffiths.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.