HSBC’s Manish Kohli: shaping the future

Leading Light – The Americas

Highly Commended Winner

Manish Kohli, HSBC

Manish Kohli

Head of Global Payments Solutions

HSBC Holdings plc, the parent company of HSBC, is headquartered in London and serves customers worldwide through offices in 56 countries and territories. The bank employs 208,844 full-time staff. With assets of US$3,306bn, HSBC is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations.

Profile

Manish Kohli, the 2026 Highly Commended Winner in The Americas, joined HSBC in October 2021. As head of the bank’s Global Payments Solutions (GPS) business, he focuses on driving growth for GPS globally, and strengthening the bank’s product capabilities and digital tools to support clients’ evolving needs.

Manish previously worked for Citi for 24 years in a variety of senior roles across the global transaction banking business, with a focus on cash, trade and FX solutions.

During his career, Manish has worked in Mumbai, London and New York, in a variety of country-specific, regional and global roles. These experiences have shaped his leadership approach, and reinforced his belief in the value of inclusive, high-performing teams.

As part of Treasury Today’s Women in Treasury & Finance Awards programme, the prestigious Leading Light Award is awarded to individuals of either gender who have played a key role in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the treasury and finance community. It is open to people who work for organisations serving the corporate community.

Raising the bar

Being a ‘leading light’ means different things to different people. For Manish, it’s about setting the pace and raising the bar for others, while amplifying teams and the people around them.

He embodies this through two of his core leadership beliefs. “Spotting talent and positioning it to succeed is my leadership edge,” he says, explaining that this means identifying individuals’ strengths early and connecting them to meaningful opportunities.

He also aims to be a role model for inclusive leadership – in other words, creating an environment where people feel confident to speak up, challenge constructively and contribute fully.

Effective leadership

When it comes to building and maintaining an effective leadership team, Manish highlights the importance of aligning teams around common goals and clear accountability.

“In my experience, leaders are best developed through real accountability and measurable results, supported by coaching, timely feedback and consistent delivery excellence,” he explains. “Throughout my career, I have worked to build performance cultures where progression is earned through impact and opportunities are open to all.”

He adds that visible role models across his leadership team – including high-performing women leaders – have strengthened the team’s culture and raised the bar for execution and client focus.

“Continuous learning and innovation are also essential for leaders and their teams,” he adds. “Teams that test, learn and improve can adapt faster to changing client needs and the evolving payments landscape.”

Inclusive by design

Manish is a strong believer in the strength of diverse, high-performance teams. “Diverse teams reduce blind spots and increase creativity; high-performance teams deliver with pace and discipline,” he reflects. “Together, they help us build a culture that is inclusive by design and competitive by results.”

In order to build teams that consistently perform at a high level, Manish focuses on three key areas: putting the right people in the right roles, investing in talent and rewarding performance and delivery.

Where inclusivity is concerned, HSBC has been reporting on the gender pay gap in the UK since 2017, and has voluntarily expanded to include 8 additional markets, thereby reporting on 9 markets overall, representing over 80% of the workforce.

In the UK, the bank reported broadly balanced gender representation in its workforce of around 50% in 2025. In the key growth region of Asia, strong female representation continues to flourish in several spotlight markets.

“These figures underscore the importance of fair access to opportunity, transparent progression pathways and sustained accountability,” says Manish.

HSBC holds itself accountable by being transparent with its inclusion index, which measures colleagues’ feelings of belonging, psychological safety, perception of fairness and trust, in its annual all-employee engagement survey.

Bigger picture

Looking beyond his own team and organisation, Manish believes that bankers have a responsibility to help shape the future of the industry.

As a result, he has invested considerable time in involvement in industry bodies, including serving as a Supervisory Board Director of Swift. He previously served as Chair of the Payments Risk Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank, and as a Director of The Clearing House Payments Company.

As the payments landscape continues to evolve, Manish believes the next generation of leaders will need two key qualities to stand out: adapting quickly, and building and empowering strong teams.

Expanding on these, he argues that tomorrow’s successful leaders will need to understand how to position payments innovation in ways that matter to clients. Harnessing digital, data and AI fluency effectively will be another important differentiator – and in a regulated, high-volume environment, disciplined decision-making and appropriate risk management will also be key.

Last but not least, Manish highlights the importance of leading by example. “Leaders should develop high-performing teams through clear standards, coaching and fair access to opportunity, so progression is driven by contribution and results,” he concludes.

Treasury Today Group’s Women in Treasury & Finance Awards celebrate exceptional talent and dedicated individuals changing their corporations from within. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/women-in-treasury/awards/

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