A professional holding topmost position with thirty-two years of proven track record of delivery through turn-around in business and outstanding leadership. Humaira Azam has been appointed as the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Trust Bank Limited as her appointment happened to be the first-ever for female banker in the commercial banking industry of Bangladesh in 50 years. Her core expertise is in corporate and commercial business, trade, retail, trade, special assets, branch banking, Islamic banking, credit, risk and financial institutions. She has so far worked with three multinational banks, one multinational financial institution (majority share-holder being AGFED- Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development) and two local private banks.
She started her career in 1990 as a Management Trainee in ANZ Grindlays Bank. Since then she has been involved in various leadership roles entailing problem solving in a multicultural challenging environment. She had built and grown the Local Corporate business in ANZ Bank as early as in 1993. She joined HSBC Bangladesh in its inception in 1996 and laid a very strong framework for Corporate Banking/ Offshore Banking Unit, Custodian and Institutional Banking including formulation of 10 years’ strategy in Bangladesh. She helped Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in Bangladesh in their four most critical years to cover for the shortfall in country budget through successful recovery. She was the first ever female member of the Country Management Committee of SCB Bangladesh. She played a critical role in the Country Strategy and restructured and broadened the role of financial institutions in SCB. She turned around IPDC, Bangladesh by restoring the capital and made significant progress in business and operational growth both in terms of quantity and quality through developing a strong deposit base, stopping dependency on banks for funding, rolling out specific policy to allow managed and sustainable credit growth including composition of branches.
As Deputy Managing Director & Chief Risk Officer in Bank Asia, she had to build the internal framework for the systems and roll them out along with final implementation. After joining as Additional Managing Director of Trust Bank Ltd in 2018, she had looked after strategy, policy roll out, risk and overall business. She had contributed significantly and participated in key decision-making processes of the bank (Strategic Planning, Business Development, Capital Planning, Liquidity Planning, New Products and Services, Compensation Design & Operation). She took charge in Trust Bank Limited (TBL) in February 2021 as MD (In-Charge) and officially in April, 2021 as Managing Director & CEO. Despite various external challenges, the Bank’s overall businesses grew significantly in 2021 amid the pandemic & bank has crossed the 10 billion mark in operating profit for the first time under her active administration.
Humaira Azam has attended in a good number of professional trainings, development programmes, workshops and seminars both at home & abroad. She has been recognised by Oxford as one of the top tier leaders in the world. She has been featured as one of the top 10 influential women in Islamic business and finance in the world by UK-based financial intelligence house Cambridge IFA in its WOMANi Report 2021. She is the first Bangladeshi woman to receive such honour in the world. Junior Chamber International (JCI) Bangladesh has presented her with the “Woman of Inspiration Award 2020” for her magnificent display of skill and irrefutable success in financial sector of Bangladesh. She was honored with “Top Women Bankers Award” by Brac Bank Limited, Bangladesh. She received “BOLD (Bangladesh Organization for Learning & Development) Women of Inspiration Awards 2017” under pinnacle career achiever sub category for her outstanding contribution in Banking. Earlier, she was awarded with “Hexagon Sales Award” by HSBC, Bangladesh for her outstanding achievement in the whole Asia Pacific region. Recently, Radisson Blu Dhaka presented her “Women of Excellence” for outstanding role in banking and leading her organization exceptionally. She has successfully led from the front and worked with different teams over the last 32 years and delivered excellent results.
