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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 officer

Mohammad Kamal Syed

Mohammad's career spans over 35 years in many senior leadership positions across investment banking, wealth management and fund management, covering UHNW and corporate and institutional relationships. Mo 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 his career in investment banking in London. Mo specialised 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 and derivatives business.

Mo subsequently joined Barclays (1992), where he held senior positions in investment banking and his responsibilities included Deputy Head of the Global Derivatives and Capital Markets, Head of Asia-Pacific and was a member of several of the bank’s senior Executive Management Committees.

Subsequently, he was Global Head of Investment Banking at Sanwa International PLC and Sanwa Financial Products (now Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Group), where he was also Chairman of the Global Executive Committee and member of the Executive Board.

Mohammad Kamal Syed was appointed Interim CEO of Coutts and Wealth Businesses in July 2023.

 

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

SIOBHAN BOYLAN

Siobhan Boylan joined Coutts in September 2023 as CFO. She has over 30 years financial services experience including wealth management, asset management, retirement savings, pensions and insurance.

She joined from Brewin Dolphin plc where she held the role of Chief Financial Officer prior to its acquisition by Royal Bank of Canada. Before this she was CFO at Legal & General Investment Management and held various senior financial roles at Aviva PLC. She is a chartered accountant (ACA) having trained with PWC.

 

Mark-Lund

Non-Executive Director

Mark Lund

Mark joined Coutts as Non-Executive Director in 2015.

He has almost forty years experience in the financial services sector and has operated at Director/CEO level for the last thirty 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 and a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton.

Mark has worked as an independent non executive director for the last ten years. He is the Deputy Chairman/senior independent director at Skipton Building Society and non-executive director at the UK’s largest estate agency group, Connells Ltd. Previous appointments include Deputy Chair of GB Snowsports, Chair of MyCSP Ltd the civil service pension administrator and Chairman of Equiniti’s regulated financial services business.

Mark has a Masters degree in Transport Economics from the University of Leeds and is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.  

 

Non-Executive Director

SHARMILA NEBHRAJANI

Sharmila began her career in strategy consulting and has broad sectoral experience across health, media, utilities and financial services from both the private and public sectors. She serves as a Non-Executive Director at Halma Plc, ITV Plc and Severn Trent plc and is Chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the organisation responsible for assessing the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical innovations in the NHS. She is appointed by HM Treasury to chair the Sovereign Grant Audit Committee and sits as Non-Executive Director for the Lord Chamberlain’s Committee of the Royal Household. She also serves as Trustee of the Governing Council of Oxford University where she chairs the Audit and Scrutiny Committee.

In her executive career, Sharmila spent 15 years at the BBC, latterly as Chief Operating Officer for BBC Future Media and Technology, the division that built the iPlayer, and was most recently Chief Executive at Wilton Park, an executive agency of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office convening international dialogues for senior policy makers from around the world with a special focus on global health. 

Sharmila read Medicine at the University of Oxford and has been a World Fellow at the University of Yale since 2007.  She is also a chartered accountant and was awarded 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.

 

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