Ex-Domestos global chief takes on job at Standard Chartered
International bank Standard Chartered has appointed former Unilever global marketer Aidan Lisser as head of group brand development.
Lisser, formerly senior vice-president for the household care category at Unilever and a global director for the Cif and Domestos brands, has joined the bank in a newly created role.
As the last big UK bank without a strong domestic base, Standard Chartered has long been regarded as something of an oddity in financial circles. It withdrew from international advertising in the 1980s after successfully weathering a hostile bid by Lloyds Bank, and dealt with a legacy of Third World debt problems and unwise lending to individual entrepreneurs.
The bank recently handed Tequila TBWA its global advertising brief after a pitch. The agency was appointed to set up a global team in Singapore to handle Standard Chartered’s strategic and global account, which spans 30 countries.
The banking group, often known as Stanchart, operates primarily in Asia, but also has operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America; in all, it has more than 500 offices in 55 countries. It took advantage of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s to buy up operations in Indonesia and Thailand. More recently, it opened branches in Kabul and South Korea, and assisted in setting up the Trade Bank of Iraq.