Steve McCarthy: The Man Who Painted a Bank Red
Steve McCarthy: The Man Who Painted a Bank Red
Most ex-banking folks never really knew Steven McCarthy. He was a distant figure — a name associated with volatility, an accent that barked orders at Hong Kong speed, a reputation that preceded him through every corridor.
But some of us knew a different Steve. The one who smiled only after hours, over a beer at his Jumeirah villa or the Hilton bar. The one who saw possibility where others saw grey chairs and colonial-era torpor. The one who, when it mattered most, acted against the bank’s own impersonality.
This is his story. Or rather, ours with him.
The Arrival
When Steve arrived from SCB Kowloon — Hong Kong’s retail banking powerhouse, second only to HSBC — the whispers had already started. He was here to transform retail banking. A monumental task for what was essentially a glorified post office in banker’s clothing.
I met him on my second day under his indirect command. Functionally, I reported to the Manager, Operations. Before long, practically, I knew Steve held the strings.
He never smiled during office hours. Not once. That smile — easy, warm, disarming — only emerged in the evenings when the tie came off and the beer came out. But at work? Pure intensity. Hong Kong at 100 words per minute.
“These Chairs Look Dead”
My first summons came quickly. First floor. Office next to the Manager, Emirates (a title that’s probably been gloriously upgraded to CEO, UAE a few years later).
“We’re going to the mezzanine floor,” Steve announced without preamble. “I want to see how retail banking actually works in this bank.”
The retail floor fell silent as we walked through. Some staff didn’t even look up — they’d heard the stories. Steve was here to disrupt everything. He scanned the counters, the banking hall, the managers huddled in offices, the clerks suddenly very busy with paperwork.
“I want to change the furniture,” he said flatly. “These grey chairs look dead.”
That was it. We walked back to his office.
The next morning, he was on the phone to a local furniture supplier — Al Abbas, MMI, one of those trading companies whose name now escapes me. What doesn’t escape me is what he said: “Replace all the chairs. Red. Blood red.”
Samples arrived the next day. Steve picked the bloodiest shade without hesitation. There were no interior designers. No consultants. Just Steve.
The supplier agreed to a rolling schedule: ten chairs at a time, reupholstered, returned, repeat. Steve thundered at the visibly shaken salesman: “In future, all furniture orders will be red chairs. Only red.”
The Transformation
What followed was nothing short of metamorphosis.
Clerks started wearing white shirts and red ties. Female staff wore red lipstick — sometimes, admittedly, going overboard. Steve hired suave retail banking officers from competing banks. Automated remittance systems appeared. Signature verification technology materialised. Consumer banking systems implemented. Somehow, capital expenditure was found. The retail banking floor never looked the same.
But Steve didn’t stop there.
The branches became his next horizon. Deira branch. Major renovations. I was summoned as the chief techie in charge of relocating all the gear.
Laing — a major British construction firm — was engaged. Floors were moved. Counters replaced. Everything — chairs, desks, lighting — transformed. Money was not a factor.
I still remember the look on the British supervisor’s face as he took orders from Steve at machine-gun pace. I felt sorry for the man. My job — relocating computers and networking equipment — was relatively easy by comparison.
Then Steve set his eyes on the backup data centre in Deira. Prime commercial real estate, barely used. He decided to relocate it to Sharjah branch.
The chief networking techie from Etisalat literally put his hands on his head when he realised he’d have to relocate seven different sets of networking gear and test them all in Sharjah, coordinating multiple teams across the telco.
Steve didn’t care. Sharjah branch was refurbished. An upper floor was rented for the relocated data centre. Laing O’Bourke, IBM, Etisalat, and other suppliers made huge efforts — and huge profits.
Then followed the other branches: Al Shamal, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain. None were spared the pain. But the result? A new-look Standard Chartered Bank where every staff member was proud of their workplace.
During branch visits, Steve’s eye would land on the most presentable clerks — sharp dressers, confident manner — and they’d become his chosen ones.
The Man Behind the Machine Gun
By this time, stern-looking Steve had a devoted following. He was virtually my manager, regardless of what the org chart said. If I pleased Steve, my manager was pleased.
My team — numbering twenty, maybe thirty if you counted indirect reports — operated on one wavelength: please the man, and we’d be fine.
Steve’s ambitions extended beyond Dubai. He wanted the regional head office in Dubai — which oversaw many Gulf countries — to see what he had built. More specifically, he wanted them to see the calibre of team he’d assembled.
I was sent to multiple countries. Not for training. Not for conferences. But to demonstrate competence. To show the bank’s network that Steve McCarthy’s operation in Dubai wasn’t just about red chairs and renovated branches — it was about people who could hold their own on any stage.
That was Steve’s way. Build the team. Transform the systems. Then make sure the world knew what you’d achieved.
But here’s what most people didn’t see: Steve had a soft corner for his chosen staff.
When my second-in-command — whom Steve knew well — left for Canada but later wanted to return for a few months, Steve offered him a short-term contract without hesitation. No bureaucracy. Just: “Bring him back.”
When It Mattered Most
There are moments when you discover who someone truly is. For Steve, that moment came when a senior bank clerk died suddenly of a heart attack.
The father died — just like that — and with him, the structure of the family gave way. The elder son was already in the United States, pursuing his studies. The younger, not yet a man but no longer quite a child, found himself at sixteen facing something he had not been prepared for.
In Dubai, the rules were impersonal. Without the principal sponsor, the family’s right to remain dissolved. They were expected to return, quietly, to the country they had left behind.
It might have ended there, as such stories often do.
But institutions, like individuals, sometimes act against their own impersonality. The bank — under men such as Steve McCarthy — intervened. It was, in one sense, an act of nepotism. In another, it was something less easily defined: a recognition that two lives, already unsettled, should not be further undone.
Steve offered both brothers employment.
There are moments when life shifts without ceremony. This was one of them. The transition from dependence to responsibility did not announce itself; it simply occurred. The younger son joined the Consumer Finance division in Dubai. The elder abandoned his university studies and entered retail banking.
For a brief period, they moved along similar lines, though it soon became clear that their temperaments differed. The elder brother, unsuited to the discipline of desk work, eventually left to follow a path more in keeping with himself. But the foundation had been laid. Two young men had been given a chance when the rules said they had none.
That was Steve. Red chairs and rigid standards — but also this.
The Legacy
Steve McCarthy transformed more than furniture and floors. He transformed how we saw ourselves, How we saw banking, and what we believed was possible when excellence was non-negotiable. It looked like a makeover; in reality, he was building an entire retail banking machine where almost nothing had existed before.
He was difficult. Demanding. Exhausting.
But he was also loyal, visionary, and utterly committed to his people — especially when they needed him most.
The grey chairs are long gone. But the memory of the man who replaced them — red, only red — and who knew when to break the rules for the right reasons, remains vivid.
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