Dame Clara Furse DBE

Clara Furse is the Chairman of HSBC UK, the ring-fenced bank of the HSBC Group.  She is also a non- executive Director of Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. In March 2021 she became Chairman of the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum, establishing a group that aims to operationalize a global, high integrity market for voluntary carbon credits; an essential component of an accelerated and economically productive transition to net zero.

She is a member of the Panel of Senior Advisors to Chatham House.  She was also a member of Bocconi University’s International Advisory Council from 2014 until 2022. In 2012, she chaired the Lead Expert Group of the UK Government’s Office for Science Foresight Project on the future of computer trading in financial markets.

From April 2013 until October 2016, she was an External Member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC), a policymaker on the new statutory body and macroprudential regulator.

She was a non-executive Director of Vodafone Group Plc from September 2014 to July 2023. She was a non-executive Director of Amadeus IT Group S.A. from April 2010 to June 2022.  From June 2010 to March 2017, she was a non-executive Director of Nomura Holdings. For six years until April 2017, she was also on the Board of the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions and latterly its lead independent Director. 

From January 2001 to May 2009, she was Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange, a FTSE 100 company. During this period she was also a non-executive Director of Euroclear plc, LCH Clearnet Group Ltd., Fortis SA and a member of the Shanghai International Financial Advisory Council. From 2009 to 2013, she was a non-executive Director of Legal & General Group. 

Prior to joining the Exchange, Clara was Group Chief Executive of Credit Lyonnais Rouse from 1998 to 2000. Before that she spent 15 years at UBS.

Clara’s career has spanned a broad range of global financial markets.  She began her career in 1979 as a commodities broker, joining Phillips and Drew in 1983. At UBS she became a Managing Director in 1995 and Global Head of Futures in 1996. During the 1990s she also served as a non-executive Director, Committee Chairman and Deputy Chairman of LIFFE, the UK’s first financial futures exchange.

Clara was educated at schools in Colombia, Denmark and Britain, and received her BSc (Econ.) from the London School of Economics in 1979.  She speaks several European languages and lives in North Wales and London. She has achieved a number of firsts and won a number of awards during her career, including being named in the TIME 100 in 2007.

In 2008 Clara was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire for her contribution to the financial services industry.