Standard Chartered is axing one in four senior management jobs, or 1,000 roles, as the new boss of the emerging markets-focused bank attempts to cut costs.

Bill Winters, who become chief executive in June, announced the scale of his cuts in a memo to staff. “Our situation requires decisive and immediate action,” Winters said in the memo, according to Reuters. “Each member of the management team has a mission to drive through improvements in our returns and part of this will be further streamlining of our organisation.”

Winters was recruited to Standard Chartered, a familiar sight on high streets in emerging markets, to bolster returns to shareholders after three profit warnings in quick succession dented its share price. He took over from Peter Sands, who had led the bank through the 2008 financial crisis.

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A former investment banker at JP Morgan, Winters had signalled cuts were on the way when he presented first-half results in August. At the time he was careful not to put a figure on job cuts after 4,000 roles – or 5% of the workforce – had been cut in the previous six months.

He had warned the bank needed to “kickstart performance, reduce costs, slash bureaucracy, improve accountability and speed up our decision making”. Standard Chartered said the latest memo was following through on this.

“Bill’s note to staff is an update on what we said we were going to do. In it, he has made it clear that kickstarting performance is a priority, and we are not standing still. We have a clear sense of our direction of travel and the key areas of focus – superior execution, targeted investments, divestment where we are not advantaged and innovation in our product and process design,” a Standard Chartered spokesperson said.

“On headcount, we said previously … that there would be further personnel changes to come, as we simplify our organisational structure. We have already acted to reduce management layers, and a result will have up to 25% fewer senior staff.”

