Coutts & Co Board
The Board of Coutts & Co is the principal decision-making forum for the company. It has overall responsibility for leading and controlling the company, and is accountable for its financial and operational performance.
Chairman
Lord Remnant, CBE
Lord Remnant joined Coutts as a Non-Executive Director in 2022, becoming Chairman on 1st January 2023.
Lord Remnant brings substantial advisory, regulatory and listed company experience to the Board, having worked in senior roles across the financial services sector, including banking, insurance and asset management. He is the Senior Independent Director of Prudential plc and sits in the House of Lords.
In 2022, he stepped down from Severn Trent plc after nine years on the Board and retired from the Takeover Panel after 10 years as Deputy Chair. Previously, he was Chairman of the City of London Investment Trust plc and of M&G Group Limited.
After qualifying as a chartered accountant, Lord Remnant spent his working life in the City as an investment banker, first with Kleinwort Benson and latterly with Credit Suisse. He was vice-chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston Europe and head of the UK investment banking department. He was Director General of the Takeover Panel for two years between 2001 and 2003, and again in 2010.
At the time of the financial crisis in 2008 Lord Remnant was working within Government as Chairman of the Shareholder Executive. He then sat on the board of UKFI, which was responsible for the Government’s shareholdings in RBS and Lloyds, and was also appointed to the board of Northern Rock as one of two government appointed directors.
Lord Remnant is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Chief Executive
Mohammad Kamal Syed
Mohammad (Mo) Kamal Syed joined Coutts in 2012 as Head of Asset Management and has a breadth of international experience spanning investment banking, fund management and UHNW client management.
Prior to Coutts, Mo was CEO at MaxCap Partners (UK Multi-Family Office) and founder of Axiom Funds Group. He began working in Fixed Income and Derivatives sales and trading at the Bank of Tokyo in London in 1986 and moved to Japan in 1990, where he was responsible for building the South East Asia capital markets business.
Whilst in Tokyo, Mo joined Barclays (1992), where he held senior positions including Deputy Head of Global Derivatives Trading and was a member of several of the bank’s Executive Management Committees.
Subsequently, he was Board Director, COO and Global Head of Investment Banking at Sanwa International PLC (now part of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Group), where he was also Chairman of the Executive Committee and member of the Executive Board.
Mohammad Kamal Syed was appointed CEO of Coutts and Wealth Businesses in July 2023, subject to required approvals.
Non-Executive Director
Mark Lund
Mark Lund joined Coutts as Non-Executive Director in 2015.
Mark has some 35 years' experience in the financial services sector and has operated at Director/CEO level for more than 25 years in both plc and private businesses in the UK and internationally. He is a former CEO of St James's Place plc and has also had a spell on secondment as the CEO of Virgin Direct. Prior to this he was a Director of Henderson Investors plc.
In 2012, Mark was appointed by the Cabinet Office to chair the employee benefit trust of My CSP Ltd. He also chairs the main board of My CSP, which is responsible for administering pensions payments to more than 1.5 million UK public sector employees. In addition, Mark is the Deputy Chairman of the Skipton Building Society and Chairman of Equiniti's regulated financial services businesses.
Mark has a Masters degree in Transport Economics from the University of Leeds. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. Married with three children, he is a keen cyclist and skier.
Non-Executive Director
SHARMILA NEBHRAJANI
Sharmila joined Coutts as a non-executive director in 2021.
Sharmila read Medicine at the University of Oxford, graduating with first class honours in Physiological Sciences. Rather than pursuing further clinical studies, she began an international consulting career in finance and strategy, specialising in telecoms, infrastructure and technology whilst qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. She had a 14 year career at the BBC including 9 years as Chief Operating Officer at BBC Future Media & Technology, the division that built the BBC iPlayer. She was most recently Chief Executive of Wilton Park, a not-for-profit agency of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office convening international policy dialogues on topics such as global health, regional and national security, climate change and artificial intelligence. She now sits on a range of boards including Severn Trent plc, ITV plc and National Savings & Investments. Sharmila is a World Fellow at the University of Yale and was made an OBE in 2014 for services to medical research.
Non-Executive Director
Linda Urquhart OBE FRSE
Linda has over 30 years experience in the legal industry as a former partner, CEO and Chairman of Scottish law firm, Morton Fraser.
She is currently a Non-Executive Director of Edinburgh Airport. She was formerly Chairman of This is Remarkable, a non-executive Director of Adam & Co and is a former board member of the CBI and Scottish Enterprise. She was awarded an OBE for services to business in 2012. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In the charitable sector, Linda is President of Girlguiding Scotland.
When you become a client of Coutts, you will be part of an exclusive network.
