Joe Garner

Johnson Daniel Garner (born 23 June 1969) is the Chief Executive of Nationwide Building Society, the UK's largest mutual financial organisation. He previously held senior roles at BT's infrastructure division Openreach, HSBC and Procter & Gamble.

Garner was born in Hertfordshire, having two older sisters. His father was an aeronautical engineer who had worked at de Havilland, and had married Alegra Mizrahi in 1959.

He went to school at King's College School, an independent school in Wimbledon, leaving in 1987. He studied Geography at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Early Career

Garner was a graduate trainee at Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1991. He spent nine years at P&G including five years in Romania, then worked at their European headquarters in Brussels. He joined Dixons in 2001, initially as Marketing Director at mobile phone retailer The Link. In 2003 he played a key role in launching Immobilise www.immobilise.com which had the objective of reducing mobile phone theft by stopping the ability to re-programme stolen phones.

HSBC

Following his stint at P&G and a short stay at Dixons, Garner joined HSBC in 2004. He was appointed Head of UK Retail Bank on 1 December 2010 as Group General Manager and deputy head of HSBC UK, replacing Paul Thurston. He is credited with putting in place the firms approach to Treating Customers Fairly .He left at the end of October 2012.. Brian Robertson was Head of HSBC Group's (combined) UK operations at the time.

BT

Garner became chief executive of BT's infrastructure division Openreach in February 2014. During his tenure superfast broadband coverage exceeded 90%.He left the company in April 2016 to become chief executive of Nationwide Building Society.

Nationwide

His role at Nationwide started on 5 April 2016, with former CEO Graham Beale stepping down on 4 April 2016. In addition to his £885,000 salary, Garner also receives a £292,000 pension allowance, a £1 million bonus and £500 a day to cover the cost of travel, security and medical expenses. In April 2020, Garner was one of the first CEOs in the financial services sector to take a salary reduction and forfeit his bonus in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Industry roles

Garner sits on the board of UK Finance,the trade association for the finance industry, andsat on the Practitioner Panel of the Financial Services Authority having previously been its Chair from 2011 to 2013 . He was also a non-executive director of the Financial Ombudsman Service from 2008 to 2010.

Garner married Marzena Supel, a Polish national, and they have a son. He lives in London.

He is an keen triathlete, competing in his age group at the 2018 European Championships, coming 15th. . He has been Chairman of the British Triathlon Trust since 2012.