Here is a roundup of moves and appointments in Asia's wealth management market for April.

Australia-based Fortnum Private Wealth, part of Fortnum Financial Advisors, appointed a former BT Financial Group manager to the newly-created position of head of advice. Kerry Thomas is the former national manager, practice advice at BT Financial Group. He reports to Fortnum Private Wealth managing director Joel Taylor.

Pictet Asset Management appointed Andy Wong as senior investment manager within its multi-asset team. He is based in Hong Kong. Wong co-manages Pictet Strategic Income, the firm’s Hong Kong-domiciled multi-asset fund. He previously worked at Invesco Hong Kong, where he was a senior fund manager overseeing multi-asset income mandates for Asian investors.

Federated Investors hired an Asia-Pacific chief executive and two other professionals to lead its business development in the region. Bill Taki took the mantle of CEO for Federated Investors Asia-Pacific. He has 34 years of experience in business development, corporate finance, asset allocation, risk  management and financial technology. He previously was at Phoenix Global Capital Management. Other joiners were Bill Mukai and H P Yoe, with experience in Japan, Greater  China, South Korea, Australia and Singapore.  

Investment manager PIMCO appointed executive vice president Michael Thompson as head of Asia excluding Japan. Thompson hadrun PIMCO’s Singapore office and the Asia ex-Japan wealth management team. He relocated to Hong Kong and replaced and sreport to Kimberley Stafford, managing director, now head of Asia-Pacific.

Citi Private Bank appointed Roger Bacon as head of investments for Asia Pacific. The bank also appointed Adam Proctor to replace Bacon as head of managed investments and advisory for Asia Pacific. Bacon reports to Eduardo Martinez Campos, global head of investments and Bassam Salem, Asia Pacific chief executive officer. Bacon is based in Hong Kong. He replaced So-Yon Sohn, who moved to a new role within the group’s global markets and investor sales. Before Citi, Bacon was head of the hedge fund business at UBP in London.

EFG International re-hired Kees Stoute to become business head in North Asia based in Hong Kong. Stoute reports to Albert Chiu and rejoined the firm after his two year stint as managing director at Hubbis.  He was previously chief executive at EFG in Singapore. This was after he held the position of regional CEO for MeesPierson Private Banking.

Credit Suisse Asset Management Hong Kong appointed Christina Kautzky as head of third party distribution for the Asia region, excluding Japan. In the newly created role, Kautzky is responsible for building relationships with third party private banks in the region. She reports to Michael Levin, head of asset management Asia Pacific.

Nordea appointed Fredrik Lager as head of Nordea Bank, Singapore branch, having had a career to date in the realm of private banking in Asia and northern Europe. He took over from the former GM, Kim Osborg Nielsen, who shouldered a more "front-office" role as head of private banking, working with the lender's larger clients in the region. Previously, Neilson worked for 11 years at Swedish banking group SEB in Singapore and Sweden. At that bank, he led a Singapore-based team of private bankers. He was a partner at Grundberg Mocatta Rakison for more than six years.

First Names Group appointed Stuart Dowding as managing director of its Hong Kong operation. He is responsible for running the Hong Kong office and works with Singapore managing director Karen O’Hanlon. Dowding was originally based in its Guernsey office, where he was responsible for business development. He relocated to Hong Kong in February 2017 to manage the senior team in the region.

Magdalene Low, who joined Julius Baer in 2016 as a team head, became a group head of one of the Southeast Asia units based in Singapore. Low, who been an executive director at UBS, had co-headed the Swiss bank’s Singapore onshore team and also covered Malaysia.

Isle of Man-based trust and corporate services provider Mann Made Group appointed Craig Murphy as managing director of its Hong Kong office. Murphy has been based in Hong Kong since 2005. He has been advising families, business-owners and corporations on structuring their affairs since 1991.

Deutsche Bank named Anthony Miller as chief executive of its Australia operations to replace retiring CEO Michael Ormaechea. Before the appointment, Miller was a partner at Goldman Sachs based in Hong Kong and co-head of the financing group for Asia-Pacific within the investment banking division.

UBS appointed Dan Williams as general counsel wealth management and general counsel for its Asia-Pacific offices. Williams replaced Frances Wong, who continued as the Hong Kong general counsel and senior lawyer for Asia-Pacific. Williams reports to Maria Leistner for his wealth management responsibilities and is a member of her management committee. In his regional role, Williams reports to Markus Diethelm and Kathy Shih.

Law firm White & Case hired Jianchong "Andre" Zhu as a partner in its Beijing office to expand its private equity team in the Asia-Pacific region. Zhu joined the firm’s global mergers and acquisitions practice. He has almost ten years’ experience and joins the firm from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Malaysian bank CIMB Group appointed Olivier Crespin as chief fintech officer. Crespin is a French national and is a graduate in International Business, Trade and Tax Law from the Universite de Metz in France. He has more than 28 years’ experience in banking.

Union Bancaire Privée appointed Paras Gupta as managing director, head of discretionary portfolio management of its Singapore office. The role is newly created. He reports to Edouard Hoepffner, who is the head of investments services for Asia. Gupta’s responsibilities as managing director include; leading the team in managing discretionary portfolios for high-net worth clients and tailored client portfolios within the region. He has more than 15 years’ experience in banking and wealth management. He has spent over eight years managing discretionary portfolios for high-net worth clients in Asia.

David Kim became a member of Vanguard’s Asian leadership team as head of Japan, replacing David Cermak, who was promoted to head of Vanguard Asia late last year. Kim has worked at Vanguard for eight years, most recently as head of mid-market retirement plan client services in the firm’s institutional investor group. Before that, he was head of broker-dealer channel management and advisor services.

HSBC Private Bank said that a former senior manager at Credit Suisse Private Bank took up the new role of investment counsellor in Hong Kong. Shawn Yin reports to Jackie Mau, head of investment counselling, Asia, HSBC Private Banking. Yin, who was head of portfolio solutions (HK) at Credit Suisse Private Bank, was on a period of gardening leave since the end of last year.

Custom House Global Fund Services opened offices in Beijing, hiring relationship managers in the Chinese capital as well as in Shanghai. The office is the third to be opened by the firm in Asia over the past two years. The hedge fund administration firm brought in Nancy Wang and Yichen Huang as relationship managers responsible for business development and client collaboration, located in Beijing and Shanghai respectively. They report to Allen Li, director of the Hong Kong office.

Manulife Asset Management appointed Shinichi Yamamoto as president and chief executive of Manulife Asset Management Japan. Yamamoto has almost two decades of industry experience. Most recently, he served as president and co-chief executive of PIMCO Japan, where he oversaw the company’s pension, financial institution and retail businesses. At PIMCO Japan, he also led the company’s global wealth management team and the development of its sub-advisory model. Yamamoto replaced Yoshihide Nagata, following Nagata's retirement at the end of March. Nagata remained as a board member.

CA Indosuez Wealth Management appointed Prad Goswami to the role of senior director. Goswami joined the NRI team, reporting to Shailendra Kirtikar, NRI team head. Previously, Goswami was with Union Bancaire Privee in Singapore for three years. He also worked with Citibank in India in corporate banking and at Bank of America in the US as a mortgage specialist.

Standard Chartered Private Bank appointed a new product manager, Luke Toh, previously of Julius Baer. His title is that of associate director, managed investments. Toh is in charge of managed investment products for the private banking teams based in Singapore. Also based in Singapore, Toh reports to Gavin Chia, executive director, head of investment advisory, strategy and managed investment, wealth management. Toh was part of the fund specialists Asia team at Julius Baer.

Swiss Life Group created a new sub-brand to stress cross-border solutions in areas such as private wealth, and announced a raft of senior management changes, including a new head of global private wealth to succeed Beat Reichen. Reichen, who stepped down from his role, remained head of key partner management. Thomas Henze became new head of global private wealth. In 2007, he joined Swiss Life International, working in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. With his background as a lawyer and as legal counsel, Henze has held various management positions. Most recently, he has been based in Singapore since 2009 and became CEO of the Asian subsidiary in 2012. Henze works with local CEOs Stephen Hickman (CEO Singapore since November 2016) and Alessandro Tulli (CEO Liechtenstein since July 2016).

Aviva's Asian unit appointed Randy Lianggara as regional chief executive for China, Indonesia and Vietnam, a newly-created role. Lianggara joined the firm in June 2016 as regional executive for Indonesia and Vietnam. Prior to that, he worked as the country CEO of life insurance, general insurance and asset management for AXA Indonesia.

National Australia Bank appointed Leslie Raymond as “head of people” – aka human resources - for its Asia business based in Hong Kong. Raymond was previously at Air New Zealand where she was human resources director in its Asia business for the past two years. Prior to this, she held leadership roles at Bacardi-Martini Asia-Pacific and Schindler China where she provided strategic direction for all policies and procedures relating to HR.