Maria Elena Gatt Floridia

Spear’s Review

Maria Elena Gatt Floridia, the private banker who tells Spear’s she ‘started from nothing’, is moving by leaps and bounds in the private client world. Not only has her AuM grown substantially, but the global nature of her UK clients’ portfolios has also returned ‘strong revenue and performance’.

A managing director at HSBC Global Private Banking, she considers that the most important aspect of her role is her relationships with her clients. ‘It’s about staying close to your clients and making sure that it’s not just about investments,’ she says.

Having recently joined HSBC’s newly established special segments team, focusing on financial markets, media, UK residents and non-doms and charities,  Gatt Floridia tends to work with clients who require a more complex wealth management strategy; this means ensuring that the right structuring is in place for portfolios.

Adviser Profile

Maria Elena is responsible for managing some of HSBC’s largest domestic HNW relationships – predominantly looking after entrepreneurs, professionals working in the financial services industry and C-suite executives.

She has successfully grown the value of her book year on year. Whilst Maria Elena says that there is ‘no magic formula’ for her success, colleagues attribute it to hard work, thorough preparation and a splash of personality. 

She listens and offers solutions to her clients that are tailored precisely to their individual needs. Success has also been attributed to the fact that Maria Elena has access to multi-skilled team of experts covering investment advice and management, structuring, succession planning, philanthropy and bespoke lending.

Maria Elena’s clients have always been her number-one priority and she aims to build long-term relationships. She enjoys working with people who have been highly successful across a range of industries and professions. 

She stays close to her clients especially in difficult times and, crucially, makes sure that they have no reason to ever leave her.