Amanda Andrews, international communications director at Amazon Web Services, has been hired by HSBC for a newly created senior comms role at the bank.
She will leave Amazon next month and is set to start her new role as managing director, head of communications, businesses and markets, HSBC, in mid-November.
Andrews will “lead internal and external communications for the bank’s global businesses and markets” and report to Aileen Taylor, group chief people and governance officer, according to a statement released by HSBC.
She is joining the bank in the wake of a major comms restructure. Steve John, HSBC’s group chief communications and brand officer, left the bank late last year. The creation of a head of comms, businesses and markets role is among the changes in comms since his departure.
Andrews will lead a team of external and internal comms professionals serving all of the bank’s business and 57 markets. She will also be responsible for internal comms, and will work closely with Heidi Ashley, HSBC’s head of group external comms.
Andrews spent more than a decade as a journalist and is a former media editor at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. She switched to comms in 2011 when she became an associate director at Freud Communications, leading the agency’s media and technology division. Andrews left after a year to go in-house, becoming senior media relations manager at Vodafone. She spent six years at the telecoms company, during which time she progressed to head of comms, strategy and research.
In 2018 Andrews joined Amazon as director, corporate comms. She went on to hold several senior comms roles at the tech giant before becoming comms director, international, at Amazon Web Services in 2023.