Bill Winters: downfall of a banking hero

Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, was once hailed as a paragon among moneymen. But now he is under fire for a tin-eared defence of his bloated pay packet. Can he hang on to his position?

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(Image credit: PETER PARKS / Contributor)

Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered © Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(Image credit: Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered © Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bill Winters has always seemed the antithesis of the stereotypical banker. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the former co-head of JP Morgan's investment bank lambasted the "greedy bankers" who sowed the seeds of catastrophe, and colleagues speak warmly of his humour, humility and graciousness. So it is surprising, says the Financial Times, that this paragon of moneymen is now "at the centre of one of the biggest rows over bankers' pay in the UK in years". In his latest guise as head of emerging-markets specialist Standard Chartered, Winters last week attacked "immature and unhelpful" shareholders for protesting about his pay package taking issue specifically with complaints about his £474,000 pension allowance (equivalent to 40% of his cash salary and larger than that of any other banking chief). Cue a firestorm.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.