Five things you need to know about Bill Winters, StanChart chief executive

Former JPMorgan investment banker Bill Winters is to become the new chief executive of Standard Chartered after a mass clear-out at the top of the London-listed, emerging markets-focused bank.

His appointment follows two years of falling profits at StanChart and growing pressure from its biggest shareholders for a change in top management.

Mr Winters, who is 53, joins StanChart on May 1 and will be appointed chief executive in June, replacing Peter Sands. He will be based in London. Here are some of the qualities that he can bring to his new role.

He's been a big-name banker . . .A Wharton MBA graduate, Mr Winters started work at JPMorgan in New York in 1983. After moving to London in 1992 as head of European fixed income, he rose through the ranks to become head of the bank's global markets division and a director of JPMorgan Cazenove. In 2004, he was crowned co-chief executive of the group's investment banking business alongside Steve Black.

During the financial crisis, Mr Winters ran the bank's credit and trading operations and was closely involved in the integration of Bear Stearns after it was acquired in a panic sale in 2008. His skilful risk management and deep knowledge of complex financial instruments - he was an early pioneer of credit derivatives - was widely credited with helping to steer JPMorgan safely through the crash, and garnered Mr Winters a reputation as an industry star.

But Mr Winters, long-touted as a potential successor to chief executive Jamie Dimon, departed from the bank abruptly in 2009 after a fallout between the two men.

. . . but he's also been a shadow banker.In 2011, Mr Winters teamed up with the investment firms of Jacob Rothschild and South African billionaire Johann Rupert to set up an asset management and advisory firm in London, Renshaw Bay.

In 2013, he told the Financial Times that his aim with the investment venture - named after a picturesque bay in Oswego County, New York, but with an office that overlooks a brothel in Soho - was to take advantage of "dislocated credit markets", as banks derisked and many of their former activities were rendered uneconomic by tougher regulation.

And on that note, he's also been a regulator.After his ousting from JPMorgan, Mr Winters turned down a series of offers for highflying jobs based in Europe, including chief executive of UBS and Barclays, opting instead to join Britain's Independent Commission on Banking chaired by Sir John Vickers.

Mr Winters was one of the five-member panel which in 2011 set out tough reforms for the British banking industry, notably "ringfencing" UK banks' retail operations from their investment banking activities and forcing them to hold more loss-absorbing capital.

In 2012, he wrote one of three restructuring plans for Royal Bank of Scotland ordered by Chancellor George Osborne. He recommended that £110bn of non-performing assets be split off into a bad bank.

He's truly international.The American is a renowned Anglophile, but has also proven himself beyond British borders, gaining extensive international experience and recognition. He stood out early in his career by savvily steering JPMorgan through the Russian debt crisis of 1998 and gained a stellar reputation as one of the most respected bankers globally for astute leadership and understanding of the markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

But to date, the one region in which he has yet to make his mark is Asia. And given Standard Chartered is an Asian-focused bank, and the chief executive of its Asia business Jaspal Bindra is stepping down as part of the wider management reshuffle, the industry will be watching to see how he tackles his latest frontier.

He knows how and when to take time off.When Mr Winters left JPMorgan without another job in hand in 2009, the usual platitudes were said about spending time with his family. But he actually did it. He routinely did the school run and showed up at sports days and choir concerts. Mr Winters also played a supporting spouse's role as his wife Anda Winters launched "The Print Room," a new UK theatre troupe and then moved it into the Coronet Theatre, a distinctive Victorian playhouse in London's Notting Hill district.

He also knows how to have fun. In a short film made in 2013 for a Young Vic theatre fundraiser, Mr Winters - alongside City stalwarts including ICAP boss Michael Spencer and Citigroup trading-desk boss Derek Bandeen - performed a skit in which they pitch a bankers-by-day, strippers-by-night musical called "Birthday Suits."

At one point, the perma-tanned Mr Winters sheds his shirt and shows his many talents extend beyond boardroom, erupting in falsetto solo to pronounce: "Now that I'm nake-e-e-e-d!"

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