Poppy Gustafsson gets gong as business chiefs are knighted in the New Years' Honours list
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Former HSBC boss Noel Quinn, ex-Rolls-Royce chief executive Warren East and Darktrace founder Poppy Gustafsson are among the business leaders handed gongs in the New Years’ Honours list. Quinn has been knighted in recognition of his contribution ‘to financial services and net zero’.
The HSBC veteran, who worked for the bank for 37 years, shocked the City when he stepped down from the top job this year after taking the reins in 2020. He oversaw a transformation of the lender that included cutting 35,000 jobs and propelling it to record profits last year.
And he fought off an attempt by Chinese insurer Ping An, a major shareholder, to break up the 159-year-old bank. Announcing his retirement in April, Quinn, 62, said he would have a period of ‘rest and relaxation’ before moving to a portfolio career, which means taking up a number of directorships in boardrooms.
Cyber services: Poppy Gustafsson, who had already been awarded an OBE in 2019, was yesterday handed a CBE for ‘services to the cyber security industry’. East, who led Rolls-Royce for seven-and-a-half turbulent years, has been knighted for ‘services to the economy and to net zero’. He was awarded a CBE in 2014.
His tenure at the engineering firm included the Covid-19 pandemic, which dealt a hammer blow to the aircraft engine maker’s finances. East, who was previously the chief executive of computer chipmaker Arm, also led the business through a major corruption investigation related to fraud that occurred before he joined.
