What advice would you give to finance professionals at an early stage of their careers?

One can never expect things to be handed on a silver platter – because they never are. My advice would be to look ahead a couple of years and work out a plan based on the things that are important to you. What makes you happy? What are the things you want to do and the things that you don’t want to do? Where do you want to be in a few years’ time?

What more can women do to make their voices heard within their organisation?

I was the only woman out of 50 juniors in my department when I started out. And in management teams, I was often either the only woman, or one of a small number. I started to feel a responsibility to speak up when it seemed that certain points – perhaps the more female elements – were getting lost.

If you are at a meeting where something being discussed doesn’t seem right, speak up. If you are working somewhere where there are few women at the table, feel the responsibility for all the women who are not there. And if you see something from another perspective, give another point of view.

How important is it to be intentional when keeping conversations on track?

Whenever I go into a meeting, I always have a plan or a goal in mind. At times a conversation takes its own course, and before you know it, you’ve taken countless sidesteps and your goal gets lost. So sometimes in a meeting I’ll say, ‘I thought the meeting was about this, and now we’re taking a U-turn – where are we heading with this?’ Time is precious, so you want to make the most of it and remain focused.

What is your motto in life or your greatest inspiration?

What gives me the greatest peace of mind is the advice that my grandmother gave me – she said, ‘you can never do more than your best.’ Whatever the outcome of a situation might be, knowing that I have done my very best means that I won’t be thinking about the what-ifs, what I did was not good enough, or that I did not spend enough time and effort on it.

The journey to CEO

“One key thread in my career is a passion for solving puzzles,” explains Annabelle Diepenhorst. “As a child, I always wanted to be independent and able to solve issues. And as a professional, I’ve moved from analytical issues to bigger and more complex puzzles.”

A second thread in Annabelle’s career is the international element that runs through it. Although she is Dutch, Annabelle was educated at The International School of Hamburg, where she gained her International Baccalaureate. She subsequently took a gap year working in Paris – an experience that broadened her international outlook, enabling her to learn French and obtain valuable work experience.

After gaining a master’s degree in economics from the University of Amsterdam, Annabelle was offered a place on ABN AMRO’s international internship programme allowing her to do an internship in Belgium. Thereafter, she spent five years working for the bank in the Netherlands. She later relocated to work for ABN AMRO’s United States operations in New York.

While living and working in New York, Annabelle became very aware of cultural differences. “In the States, when you step into an elevator, it’s impossible not to be engaged in a cordial conversation with someone in seconds,” she explains. “People find it very easy to connect and say out loud the positive things or compliments that they might be thinking. In the US, Annabelle learned to share whatever positive she sees in others, even to strangers.

It was while Annabelle was working in New York that a consortium of banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland succeeded in its takeover bid for the Dutch bank, which led to the bank’s US operations being absorbed by RBS. “I moved over to RBS in New York, which was my first time working for a British bank. I really enjoyed the culture,” she recalls. She subsequently had the chance to broaden her career and move into a corporate banking role at Lloyds Bank.

When family circumstances necessitated a move back to the Netherlands, Annabelle was delighted to be offered a position with HSBC. Then, after moving into commercial managerial roles at ABN AMRO in 2018, she returned to HSBC in the Netherlands as its CEO in April 2024.

Solving puzzles

In choosing a career, Annabelle wanted to work in a sector that not only called for her analytical approach to problem solving and love of maths, but also one that involved a lot of human interaction. “It’s what we say and who we are that is an essential part of our products in the financial sector” she reflects. “So that makes it very human and interactive.”

In her role as CEO, Annabelle is able to exercise these skills to even greater effect. “The CEO role involves solving problems, interacting with team members as well as clients and finding a way forward,” she explains. Noting that setbacks and failure can often be enriching and instructive, she observes that “when you like what you do, you never see anything as an insurmountable challenge.”

On the human front, the leadership role of the CEO is also something that Annabelle takes very seriously. “In a demanding role like this, you have a responsibility to be fully charged, to be motivational and to keep the team going. You must have energy and spread that energy to others.”

Key to this is staying in the best possible health, both physically and mentally, and being able to be “the best version of yourself, whether it’s at home or in your job.” But Annabelle emphasises that different people are energised by different things. “Everyone always talks about running, but it didn’t work for me at all for years, until January this year when I discovered that a short run in the evening to reflect does wonders. It’s important to find what works for you, not feel guilty and stay close to who you are as a person.”

Summing up her career, Annabelle says: “I always tell people my career is like reading a book that I just cannot put down. I can’t wait to find out what the next chapter is about.”