Stringham steps down as HSBC's head of global marketing

Stringham leaves after six years at HSBC, where he was instrumental in positioning it as the "world's local bank" in a series of local advertising and marketing campaigns, and has helped build HSBC into one of the world's most recognised brands.

Stringham also consolidated the bank's advertising and marketing duties with a single lead worldwide marketing services group, with the appointment of WPP Group to cover HSBC's operations in 76 countries and territories.

WPP was appointed by HSBC to its $600m global account in May 2004 after a pitch against rivals Interpublic Group and Omnicom. WPP created a Team HSBC business to run the account, led by JWT.

Michael Geoghegan, HSBC's group chief executive, said: "Peter's contribution has been significant. During his time, the HSBC brand has gone from strength to strength.

"A powerful brand gives us the opportunity to connect our people internally and helps us reach out to customers. We now wish to take this brand to the next level of global service excellence and Peter's replacement, who will report directly to me, will be announced before Peter leaves us in March 2007."

Stringham said: "I have really enjoyed my time at HSBC. It is one of the world's great organisations and the challenge of helping to build a global brand has been very exciting. But the brand is well established now and it's time for someone else to take up the challenge."

HSBC is valued at over $11bn (£5.9bn), which makes HSBC the fourth most-valuable financial services brand in the world today.

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This article was first published on brandrepublic.com