HSBC Group

Location: Hong Kong/UK/UAE

Role Purpose

This role is responsible for shaping the global emerging talent strategy for talent development, high-potential progression, and business-aligned programme design across HSBC’s Emerging Talent population enterprise-wide. Distinct from programme delivery and operations, this role focuses on the why and what of emerging talent development — ensuring HSBC invests in meaningful, skills-aligned experiences that drive long-term career growth and workforce impact well beyond the formal programme period.

The role holder leads high-potential identification and enterprise visibility for emerging talent, as well as post-programme mobilisation strategy into permanent roles and career pathways. They act as the strategic connector between the Emerging Talent function and HSBC’s broader Talent Solutions & Learning teams, ensuring early careers talent is nurtured, visible, and set up for long-term success.

They also oversee a team that supports business-specific development and training needs within emerging talent programmes, ensuring tailored interventions are embedded to meet functional capability goals. Additionally, the role works with Talent Solutions to guide how future skills are identified and developed through programme experiences — helping shape a future-ready workforce without duplicating ownership from Learning and Talent Solutions.

Principal Accountabilities

Impact on the Business/Function

• Lead the global design and delivery of learning and development interventions across all Emerging Talent programmes, ensuring alignment to business-specific needs, future capability priorities, and enterprise learning strategy
• Drive the global post-programme mobilisation strategy, ensuring emerging talent transition effectively into long-term roles and pipelines, with strong alignment to business needs and workforce planning
• Provide insight into talent performance, potential, and readiness, advising on succession planning, targeted development, and high-potential identification for early careers populations
• Act as the primary connector between Emerging Talent and Enterprise Learning teams, ensuring alignment to global learning frameworks, leadership models, and capability strategy
• Partner with Talent Solutions to embed a skills-first approach across programme design, working with internal partners to ensure learning experiences are future-focused, inclusive, and measurable
• Provide coaching and leadership to business-aligned development leads and programme partners, fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture and strengthening development capability across the team
• Use feedback, data, and evaluation to assess the impact of development and progression interventions and drive continuous improvement across the portfolio

Customers / Stakeholders

• Partner with business-aligned People, Talent Management, Succession Planning to ensure early careers talent is visible and effectively supported through enterprise processes.
• Collaborate closely with the Enterprise Learning function to shape relevant learning interventions, without duplicating functional ownership.
• Work with graduate sponsors, managers, and business leaders to define and support high-impact development experiences aligned to business strategy.
• Act as a strategic partner to Programme Delivery to ensure development goals are integrated into operational frameworks.
• Guide business-specific graduate development leads to tailor experiences that are consistent with global standards, yet functionally relevant.
   

Critical Skills, Knowledge & Experience / Qualifications

Talent Development and Progression

• Strong background in early careers talent management, including high-potential identification, mobility planning, and post-programme transitions
• Understanding of how to build career visibility frameworks and influence enterprise processes such as succession planning or performance management
• Experience working across complex global organisations to align development strategy with workforce needs

People Leadership

• Demonstrated people leadership capability, with the ability to coach, support, and develop others across both direct and matrix teams
• Strong leadership presence and ability to role model collaborative, inclusive, and high-performance behaviours as part of a global leadership team

Programme Design and Business Alignment

• Experience partnering with business stakeholders to co-create tailored learning and development programmes
• Proven ability to manage functional relationships while balancing consistency with flexibility
• Understanding of how early talent programmes support broader workforce and location strategies

Commercial Awareness:

• Uses good judgment to make decisions that balance cost, value, and impact
• Understands how the work connects to business goals and makes choices that support long-term success

Skills and Learning Enablement

• Familiarity with workforce capability frameworks, skill taxonomies, and future skills identification
• Experience aligning learning and development to real business outcomes without duplicating enterprise Learning team ownership
• Knowledge of learning design and behavioural development principles, especially in early careers contexts

Enterprise Influence and Stakeholder Management

• Comfortable navigating a matrixed global environment with multiple stakeholders and intersecting agendas
• Ability to collaborate across Talent, Learning, HR, and business communities to ensure joined-up execution
• Strong communicator able to shape strategy, influence direction, and secure shared accountability

Strategic Thinking and Continuous Improvement

• Future-focused, insight-driven mindset with the ability to proactively evolve programmes and strategies over time
• Proven ability to use data and feedback to drive continuous improvement, decision-making, and programme impact measurement