Jean-Christophe Gerard picked up some healthy habits during the lockdown.
Barclays Private Bank’s chief executive officer made daily walks part of his routine and still aims to find an hour to walk outside when he works from home as he helps his business navigate the dual challenges of the pandemic and Brexit.
The French native oversees operations spanning London, Switzerland and India. With the U.K. weeks away from leaving the European Union, he’s targeting growth in mainland Europe from Barclays’s hub in Dublin, where the bank said it will move staff and assets in the fallout of Brexit. He’s also betting the bank’s U.S. strengths will attract more of the world’s richest to his business.
“We have the capacity to source deals in the U.S. that we can bring to Europe,” Gerard, 56, said in an October interview. “We play this card.”
Gerard joined Barclays in 2017 after more than two decades at HSBC Holdings Plc. He took up his current role on an interim basis in June and was appointed permanently two months later.
Bloomberg spoke with him about competition, where he misses eating out and working from home. Comments have been edited and condensed.
Where are you looking to grow?
Our first focus is of course the U.K. domestic market. We’ve been in this country for a long time. We want to grow our market share, and the domestic market will continue to grow.
The country has challenges ahead -- one of them Brexit of course. We’re also aware that growth in the U.K. domestic market will be what it will be -- certainly not double digit. However, you still have a lot of wealth creation.
For Asia, we don’t have an office in Hong Kong or Singapore. Instead, we play the corridor between Asia and London, and we have a full team dedicated to that. But we also want to improve our footprint in Asia because this is where growth happens.
How are you set for Brexit?
Dublin is our Brexit plan. This is where we bank the Ireland market. It’s also where we bank European clients, with a strong focus on France, Italy, Spain and Germany.