Jake Saunders

Who was Jake Saunders?

Sir John Anthony Holt Saunders, CBE, DSO, MC was chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, at a time of rapid and turbulent development of the Hong Kong economy. In his banking career, as chief manager from 1962, and chairman from 1964 to 1972, Saunders was at the helm of Hong Kong's most important financial institution at a time when the Crown Colony was rapidly changing from a trading post to a regional centre of manufacturing and finance.

A fierce pace of economic growth was fuelled by an influx of industrious migrants from China and an administration dedicated to laissez-faire tax and trade policies.

From 1966, however, domestic business confidence and dealings with mainland China were severely disrupted by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. In 1967 the devaluation of sterling – to which Hong Kong's currency was then fixed – was another blow.

Tall and confident, with perfect manners, Saunders led the bank through these events with a calming hand.