Honest broker trying to melt the ice in Davos: the Standard Chartered chief executive Peter Sands and his wife emerged into the Alpine snow of Davos after a convivial night with Mr Sands’s former employer, McKinsey
Six hours later, the energetic boss was back on duty, briefing journalists over breakfast about the bank’s strategy, before moving on to the most important meeting of the day: a showdown between
the Chancellor and the banks. Mr Sands has emerged as the honest broker between the two sides at
Davos, trying to reconcile the views of banks terrified of over-regulation with the views of politicians terrified by banker-hating voters in the run-up to the election.
It is not surprising that Mr Sands, 47, should have volunteered for the role. He and Richard Meddings, the Standard Chartered finance director, were the architects of the bank bailout. What is perhaps less appreciated is that government relations is a key part of Mr Sands’s job. Drawing on an early career at the Foreign Office, which he joined from Oxford, Mr Sands regularly has to deal with the difficult politics of the markets in India, China and Zimbabwe.
The international talking shop at Davos is Mr Sands’s natural environment and, this year, he was everywhere. By Friday night he was dressed in a Nehru-style suit, leaning over the bespoke ice bar at Standard Chartered’s cocktail party. It was as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
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Davos: Top bankers to hold secret talks with Darling in bid to avert tough sanctions. Darling is to meet the chiefs of top British and American banks at a secret meeting in Davos to hear their concerns about the introduction of tough new sanctions against the banking sector
Harsh rules “could drive bankers underground”. Heavy-handed financial rules could create a shadow banking system beyond the control of regulators, the head of the Swiss Bankers Association warns