Spencer Lake was appointed Global Head of Capital Financing with effect from 12 August 2013. He is a Partner for Element Ventures. Capital Financing houses the primary products of Global Banking and Markets, such as Debt Capital Markets and Equity Capital Markets. Spencer was previously Co-Head of Global Markets with effect from 1 January 2011. Global Markets housed the bank’s fixed income, commodities, and equity activities across sales, trading, origination, and research. Spencer joined HSBC in 2006 as Global Head of Debt Capital Markets and Acquisition Finance. He was also jointly responsible for HSBC's government sector. Prior to joining HSBC, Spencer had a 17-year career with Merrill Lynch in New York, Hong Kong, and London across a number of areas including real estate finance, investment banking, and debt capital markets. During his career at Merrill, Spencer ran Asian debt origination, started and managed European public sector origination, managed European emerging markets asset and liability origination, European financing and risk management and, prior to his departure, ran liability origination in the Pacific Rim (Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australasia). Before Merrill Lynch, Spencer worked for two years at JP Morgan in real estate investment banking. Spencer holds a BA degree in International Finance and Marketing from Suffolk University, Massachusetts, and an MBA degree from New York University's Stern School of Business.