Spear’s Review

As head of HSBC Private Bank’s family office operations, Robert Kalff nurtures relationships with some of the world’s wealthiest families. 

‘Our primary role is to deliver the whole firm to these families; not just the private bank but the corporate and investment bank, global markets and asset management,’ he tells Spear’s. 

As part of his work with HSBC Private Bank’s ‘very large, global, complex families’, he curates quarterly roundtables, bringing together entrepreneurs, founders and industry experts such as Blackstone’s Jon Gray and Apollo Global Management’s Marc Rowan. ‘As far as I know, we are the only ones bringing together this community of billionaires into one room,’ he says.

Kalff joined HSBC in 2022 to help the bank expand its ultra-high-net-worth clientele and drive new business development. He has over 25 years of experience working in private and investment banking and has held prominent roles at J.P. Morgan, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. 

Adviser Profile

Robert is HSBC’s head of family office coverage and looks after the private bank’s largest and most sophisticated clients and their family offices – with a particular focus on delivering the full global HSBC franchise to this client segment. From the corporate and institutional bank to the innovation bank or asset management to the private bank, he makes sure that both institutional and private wealth needs are well-serviced, reflecting an experience that UHNW families should have when dealing with a truly global universal bank like HSBC.

With his team’s specialist focus on the top end of the wealth continuum, Robert has curated a tight-knit billionaire community in London focused on genuine peer-to-peer connections through ‘money can’t buy’ intimate roundtables featuring world-class keynotes with the likes of Stephen Schwarzman, Henry Kravis, Sir Chris Hohn, Marc Rowan and others. Beyond engaging closely with the principals, his team has established a market-leading programme of engagement tailored specifically for the single-family office ecosystem, facilitating strategic dialogues with next-gens and C-suite representatives of the family office.

Robert’s philosophy has always been ‘client-first’ and to deliver a beyond private banking experience, which has and continues to lead to fruitful, rewarding and constructive long-term relationships with the world’s largest and most sophisticated families and their family offices.