Luanne Lim

What Luanne Lim doesn’t know about Asia’s financial industry, and in particular the workings of one of the continent’s leading banking giants, HSBC, could be written on the back of a very small banknote.

Lim executed a major institutional transition in October 2025 by stepping into her appointment as Executive Director and Chief Executive of Hang Seng Bank following a highly successful four-year run as CEO of HSBC Hong Kong. Her strategic oversight instantly shifted towards steering the major subsidiary through structural transformations, a mandate solidified when HSBC completed its milestone privatisation of the bank in January 2026. Prior to her current role, she had been CEO of HSBC Hong Kong since 2022, after serving as its COO from 2017.

Originally from Singapore, Lim has worked for HSBC since 1999. She has held key roles in Singapore; the Chinese Mainland, where she helped to set up a partnership with a local bank in Shanghai; Indonesia, where her role involved integrating HSBC with a local bank it had bought; Malaysia; and Vietnam, where she remains a director of the banking giant. During her tenure heading HSBC in Hong Kong, she ramped up the bank’s commitment to the arts through projects such as its lead partnership with M+ and pioneering exhibitions of digital artworks, whilst actively advocating for greater female representation in senior banking roles.

She is chair of the Hong Kong Association of Banks; a member of the Banking Advisory Committee and the Financial Infrastructure and Market Development Sub-committee at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; a director of the Financial Services Development Council; a member of the Investor and Financial Education Council; a member of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance and a council member of the Treasury Markets Association. She is also a board member of the Community Chest of Hong Kong.