Before his retirement, Noel was with HSBC – or its constituent companies – for 37 years. In 1987, he joined Forward Trust Group, the leasing subsidiary of Midland Bank (now HSBC UK) and for most of his time with the Group he specialised in Corporate banking.

In October 2008 he took over responsibility for the UK Commercial Banking operations of HSBC and was appointed as a Group General Manager at HSBC, leading the business during the challenging years following the Global Financial Crisis.

From 2011 to 2015, he was the Regional Head of Commercial Banking for Asia-Pacific, based in Hong Kong and was then appointed as Chief Executive, Global Commercial Banking in December 2015.

Noel remains involved with the Sustainable Markets Initiative, which was founded by HM King Charles III, as Prince of Wales, in 2020. He previously chaired its Financial Services Taskforce and, as CEO of HSBC, he was a Principal member of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. During his time as Group CEO, he has been a member of the World Bank Private Sector Investment Lab.

Recently, Noel has joined the Board of Fortescue Group and has become the Chair of Julius Baer, an international private bank, headquartered in Switzerland.

Noel qualified as a Chartered Accountant.