Daniel Truchi, chief executive of Société Générale Private Banking, is not short on ambition.After carving out a career with Crédit Lyonnais, he was asked by SG to start a wealth business in Asia, a region he knew well. On walking into his Hong Kong office in 1997, he couldn’t find a single telephone. Not that it stopped him building a business worth $15bn in less than 10 years: success which led to his rapid promotion.

Along the way, he retained Hsiao-Yun Lee, his assistant in 1997, appointing her SG chief executive in China earlier this year.