Bosses beware: one ill-chosen word can cripple your career

The list of business leaders who have damaged their careers with a single word famously begins with Gerald Ratner, who wiped half a billion off the value of his jewellery chain in 1991 by describing one of its offerings as ‘crap’. Then there was Bank of England deputy governor Ben Broadbent, whose chance of succeeding Mark Carney plunged after he picked ‘meno-pausal’ to describe an economy past its productive peak. Now Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters has blighted his remaining time in post by telling shareholders they were ‘immature’ to have voted against his massive pay package.

Having built his career with JP Morgan before joining Standard Chartered in 2015, Connecticut-born Winters used to be seen as one of London’s most level-headed bankers; hence his appointment to the Independent Commission on Banking after the financial crisis. His recent tantrum was provoked by opposition to a £474,000 payment in lieu of a pension contribution — in the teeth of criticism of lavish boardroom pension perks at a time when most employees’ pension rights have been slashed. Investors’ views of Winters (whose total pay adds up to almost £6 million) are coloured by the fact that Standard Chartered’s market value has shrunk by a quarter since he joined.

I have no doubt what he meant by ‘immature’ is that UK shareholders in an international banking business should realise, as their US counterparts do, that they need to offer globally competitive rewards for top talent without quibbling over details — the subtext being that Winters would be earning much more if he had taken an equivalent job in New York rather than accepting the challenge of trying to extract Standard Chartered from the mess left by his predecessors. But unless he conjures a sudden dramatic uplift in Standard Chartered’s recently faltering return on equity, I suspect the clock is now ticking towards the end of his tenure — because the way that ill-chosen word sounded to City ears was more like ‘Kiss my ass, you limey whingers’.