Few GCs have steered their legal teams through as many crises as Bob Hoyt.

Now chief legal officer at HSBC Holdings in London, Hoyt – a veteran of some of the world’s biggest banks and government bodies – has been at the heart of some of the toughest moments for global finance on both sides of the Atlantic, from the financial crisis, to Libor, to Brexit.

When he was GC at the US Treasury Department, Hoyt says he regularly ‘worked 24 hours a day and often slept on the couch’. Given he took up the role in December 2006 shortly before the height of the financial crisis, he isn’t exaggerating.

Taking up the post after an 18-month stint at the White House, Hoyt and his team found themselves leading the legal response to the financial meltdown. They were central to the department’s response to the crisis, working on emergency measures to stabilise the economy and the legislation for the federal rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Unsurprisingly, this experience remains his proudest professional moment. ‘Treasury was at the centre of it all,’ Hoyt recalls. ‘It wasn’t the sort of excitement you look forward to, but it was fascinating. I hope it was once in a lifetime – you wouldn’t want to repeat it.’

One standout aspect of the experience for Hoyt – who was a partner at WilmerHale before joining the White House – was seeing the legal community come together to try to save the country’s financial institutions.

‘There were so many learnings. The Treasury and IRS legal team had about 2,200 lawyers and we did quite a bit of the work. But then we also had many law firms working on the more operational components – like the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They stepped up and essentially did the work pro bono, to help out in a dire situation. They contributed massive hours, knowledge and experience and got paid virtually nothing for it. It was a great showing of goodwill by the legal community to help the US and global economy.’

‘It wasn’t the sort of excitement you look forward to, but it was fascinating. I hope it was once in a lifetime– you wouldn’t want to repeat it.’

For Hoyt, who had always been set on a career in law, this governmental experience at the White House and Treasury paved the way for the long career he’s enjoyed in-house since.

‘I realised I preferred the in-house dynamic to the law firm dynamic. The broad generalist view really appeals to me.’

Part of this preference is driven by being part of a single team working together to help a single company.

‘There’s one team working on all of the institution’s challenges, whatever they might be. But, when you’re at a law firm, at any given time you have a dozen different clients, all with their own problems so you find yourself stretched in many different directions. Even when you’re very busy in-house you know what the priorities are so you can balance and align everything towards one set of objectives.’

From the Treasury, Hoyt moved to Pittsburgh-based financial services company PNC in 2009, initially as chief regulatory affairs officer, before working up to GC by the time he left in 2013.

‘That was where I really learned about banking. I did not know much about banking before that job as I wasn’t a banking lawyer. I went in there knowing next to nothing about the industry so it was a tremendous learning experience for me.’

The experience paved the way for his move across the Atlantic to join Barclays in 2013.

‘If you look back at the big global banks at the time, pretty much all of them had, as general counsel, Americans who had spent some time in government. It was very common because, in that era, the biggest legal challenges facing these institutions tended to arise from their business in the US, and Barclays was in that position as well.’

‘I thought it was an exciting opportunity. Barclays had a lot of challenges and my background made me a good candidate for helping them with that.’

‘I realised I preferred the in-house dynamic to the law firm dynamic. The broad generalist view really appeals to me.’

Hoyt arrived shortly after the bank’s involvement in the Libor scandal, which saw Barclays fined £290m in 2012 for rate manipulation between 2005 and 2009.

‘There were many other industry-wide issues that Barclays also needed to resolve and put behind them. I would say I spent the better part of my tenure helping them deal with those.’

‘There was a big program of remediation and cultural change underway when I joined. The bank was very open about taking responsibility and putting these legacy issues behind them as best they could. If you look around at other financial institutions, almost every one I can think of has gone through a period like that. Nobody likes it because it distracts you from your business, your strategy and your core mission to serve customers.’

In addition to holding the top legal position at one of the UK’s largest banks, during his tenure at Barclays, Hoyt also chaired the Brexit Task Force for UK Finance and was on the board for the British Bankers Association.

He describes the task of separating the UK from the EU as like ‘untangling a bowl of spaghetti’.

‘It involved helping the government and regulators understand what the consequences of the separation were and how to avoid the undesirable ones,’ he says. ‘I thought of it as a great public-private partnership. It was something nobody had done before; a big task that was in everyone’s interests to go smoothly.’

Hoyt’s role was focused entirely on the practical aspects of the separation rather than the politics, a position aided by his comparatively recent arrival in the UK before the vote.

‘I hadn’t been in the UK all that long before the Brexit vote happened, so I don’t think I really had enough perspective to have a view of whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.’

‘There are certainly advantages and disadvantages for the financial sector but how successful it is is a story that is still to be written. Even very big, longstanding policies can change. That’s the nature of democracies and how they work. It’s always disruptive when there’s a big change. But life moves on.’

As do careers and, after seven years at Barclays, Hoyt made the switch to HSBC as chief legal officer in the middle of Covid in 2021.

Despite his long financial services career, the move represented a new chapter and new challenges for Hoyt. He was attracted to the geographic reach of HSBC – and, in particular, its significant Asia-Pacific presence.

‘The highlight has been the geographic spread of the organisation. It’s not just the number of countries we are in but our unique scale and depth in those countries. It’s very fresh and exciting,’ he says.

‘I’ve been incredibly fortunate, and I’ve enjoyed and am proud of what I’ve accomplished at every place I’ve been at’

Having led through some highly pressured situations Hoyt is clear that it takes a team to do the GC role effectively, rather than individual heroics. ‘You’re not in it alone. That’s one of my big beliefs. I rely hugely on the talented people on my team and they need to be able to rely on me and on one another.’

‘If you do the job with integrity, and you do it with a great team, taking advantage of all the resources that you have, that’s the most anyone can ask of you. You don’t win every case, you don’t succeed in everything you do but, if you approach your job from that perspective, you won’t stress about it because you’ll know you did the best you could with the resources available to you at the time.’

That said, Hoyt is the first to admit his job would not be for everyone.

‘I’d recommend my job to anybody who would enjoy it, but it wouldn’t be right for everybody. I remind my colleagues that you better really love doing this, because you’ll work very hard, you’ll sacrifice a lot of your work-life balance, and there is stress. If you really love the job, you won’t mind that stuff but, if you don’t love what you’re doing, it can burn you out.’

Certainly, even after decades in high profile GC roles, Hoyt remains energised by the work. ‘I’ve been incredibly fortunate, and I’ve enjoyed and am proud of what I’ve accomplished at every place I’ve been at.’