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Summary Of Executive Moves In Asia-Pacific Wealth Management - September 2018
Editorial Staff
31 October 2018
BNY Mellon, the US financial services group, appointed former Standard Chartered senior manager Sam Xu as country executive for China. Xu reports to Gregory Roath, head of global client management, Asia-Pacific, and is based in Shanghai. At Standard Chartered, Xu was most recently head of transaction banking for China covering cash and liquidity management, trade finance, custody and other securities services. Prior to Standard Chartered, Xu worked for Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan in China as well as in New York. Xu succeeded Robert Kung, who will be retiring following five years with BNY Mellon. Citi Private Bank appointed Jørgen Weber Christensen as global market manager for the Philippines. In this newly-expanded role by the bank, Singapore-based Christensen reports to Jyrki Rauhio, the firm’s South Asia head. Prior to this, Christensen was a team head in Citi Private Bank’s coverage team for the Philippines. He has more than 30 years of experience in banking and finance, including 15 covering the Philippines. Christensen joined Citi Private Bank as an RM in 1999. Prior to Citi, he worked with JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch in Singapore. He started his career at Danske Bank in Copenhagen and was transferred to Singapore in 1993 while he was with the bank. Experienced executive search figure Jonathan Hollands was appointed by Huddleston Jones as a new managing partner for Greater China, joining the firm’s leadership team and responsible for driving growth in the Greater China region. Hollands is based in Hong Kong.
Indosuez Wealth Management appointed Justin Lau as Head of Real Estate, Asia to shape real estate products and services. Prior to this, Lau was senior relationship manager in corporate banking at Maybank where his expansive portfolio included working with some of Singapore’s largest family-owned property firms, listed companies, real estate investment trusts, and Chinese state-owned enterprises. Prior to Maybank, Lau covered real estate financing for real estate investments and developments at Mizuho and UOB. He has a master of business administration, majoring in finance, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also has a BSc in urban estate management from Kingston University. Lau reports to Julien Collin, head of markets, investments and structuring, Singapore.
BNP Paribas Wealth Management announced that Teddy Chu was the new head of wealth planning services, Asia, based in Hong Kong and reporting to Garth Bregman, head of investment services, Asia-Pacific. Chu replaced Berry Wong, the previous holder of the post, who left about a year ago. Chu supervises dedicated wealth planning services teams in Hong Kong and Singapore. Prior to this role, Chu was a managing director at Standard Chartered Bank. Before that, he held senior roles at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, leading a team of wealth planners providing wealth structuring and inheritance planning advice to high and ultra-high net worth clients. He has worked in the industry for more than 20 years.
Manulife Asset Management appointed Yvonne Sin as an independent director. She also joined the board’s audit and risk committee and the conduct review committee. Sin has over 40 years of experience working with governments, non-governmental organisations, supranational entities, international financial institutions, and multinational corporations. During Sin’s 14-year tenure at the World Bank, she was appointed to leadership positions which included head of global pensions of the social protection unit, as well as team leader of the corporate planning and resource management unit.
Mark Lazberger, chief executive of Colonial First State Global Asset Management, left after being in the post for 10 years. Mark Steinberg, the chief operating officer for CFSGAM, became the acting CEO. CFSGAM is part of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Deutsche Bank did not comment that its north Asia chief operating officer, Katherine Lai, had resigned. Lai had been at Deutsche’s private bank in Asia for about 13 years, joining in July 2015.
Insurance group Chubb appointed Jeremiah Konz as executive vice president, reinsurance officer for Chubb Overseas General, the company's international general insurance business. Konz was senior vice president of ceded reinsurance for Chubb's North American operations. In his new role, which takes effect from 1 January next year, he has overall responsibility for Chubb's ceded reinsurance programmes for all markets outside North America. He succeeded Neil Bennett, who was to retire at the end of 2018. Over his 40 years in the insurance industry, including 20 years at Chubb, Bennett has worked in a variety of underwriting and claims roles, primarily in London and Bermuda. He reports to Timothy O'Donnell, vice president, Chubb Group and division president, commercial property and casualty, overseas general insurance, and to Michael Kessler, vice president of Chubb Group and chief reinsurance officer.
JP Morgan Asset Management appointed Álvaro Quirós as a product specialist in the international beta product team and Sean Cunningham as head of Asia exchange traded funds. Based in London. Quirós concentrates on product strategy and the development of ETFs alongside other vehicles. He was previously part of the ETF product development team at Xtrackers , where he worked on the idea generation for new launches and the enhancement of the Xtrackers range. Quirós reports to John Harrington, head of international beta and ETF product at JPMAM. He is based in Hong Kong.
National Australia Bank made several changes to its executive leadership team. Rachel Slade leads the customer experience division in the new role of chief customer experience officer. She has been executive general manager, deposits and transaction services since joining NAB in January 2017 after more than 10 years in senior positions at Westpac. The firm appointed Mike Baird as chief customer officer of consumer banking. He leads NAB’s retail banking business including more than 700 branches, 7,000 bankers, broker partnerships, direct banking and the digital bank UBank. Slade has been CCO of corporate and institutional banking since April 2017. David Gall moved to the role of CCO of corporate and institutional banking. He has been NAB’s chief risk officer and part of the NAB executive leadership team since August 2014, having spent 29 years in corporate, commercial and retail banking.
Shaun Dooley joined the NAB executive leadership team as CRO. He is group treasurer and has been with NAB since 1992, serving in various senior executive roles in risk, corporate and institutional banking. Also Andrew Hagger left NAB after 10 years, including the past eight years as a member of the executive leadership team. In that time, he has led the consumer banking and wealth businesses; MLC as chief executive; and the corporate affairs, marketing and people divisions.
Alpadis Group, the Switzerland-based firm which provides multi-jurisdictional corporate and bespoke fiduciary services, hired former Julius Baer figure Samy Reeb as managing director of Alpadis Trust Ltd. Reeb had worked for nearly six years at Julius Baer, as executive director, wealth planning proposition and provider management. He has also worked at some of the world’s largest law firms, as well as at JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Ernst & Young.
State Street Corporation appointed Michele Hardeman as head of global markets for Asia-Pacific. Hardeman, who has relocated to Hong Kong from Boston, previously served as head of foreign exchange sales for State Street Global Markets. She reports to Wai-Kwong Seck, chief executive for Asia-Pacific, and Lou Maiuri, global head of Global Markets.
BNP Paribas Securities Services appointed Takeshi Kozu as head of securities services Japan. He replaces Laurent Guittonneau who has relocated back to Europe with BNP Paribas. Kozu is based in Tokyo, reporting hierarchically to Philippe Benoit, head of securities services Asia-Pacific, and functionally to Nicolas Pillet, general manager of BNP Paribas, Tokyo branch. With more than 20 years’ experience in securities services, Kozu joined BNP Paribas from Mizuho Financial Group.
JP Morgan Asset Management appointed Lyn Ngooi as hedge fund solutions investment specialist for Asia-Pacific clients, a newly-created role. Ngooi is based in Singapore and reports to Karim Leguel, head of international investment specialist team - hedge fund solutions. She joined JP Morgan from APS Asset Management, where she was vice president, strategy and business development, with client coverage responsibilities in Asia and Europe.
Deutsche Bank Wealth Management named former Credit Suisse manager Aditya Mishra to lead its global south Asia client coverage team which is based in London. Mishra reports functionally to Amrit Singh, head of wealth management coverage for global south Asia and to Michael Morley, CEO, Deutsche Bank UK Bank Limited. At Credit Suisse, Mishra worked for over eight years in the UK and Asia markets.
Standard Chartered created the expanded role of group chief operating officer, hiring former Commonwealth Bank of Australia senior figure David Whiteing. He is based in Singapore and reports to StanChart’s chief executive, Bill Winters. The COO role brings together the chief operating officer’s team with the bank’s global and country operations teams, which formerly sat within information technology operations. At CBA, Whiteing was group executive and chief information officer for enterprise services. Doris Honold, the existing group COO, works with Whiteing and Michael Gorriz to split operations from technology and integrate them with its existing COO function. She remains as part of the management team. Gorriz continues to lead StanChart’s digital transformation and innovation programmes.
Hong Kong-based Swiss International Asset Management appointed John Holmes as partner and senior relationship manager. Holmes has over 23 years of experience in international private banking and fund management. He spent 10 years with LGT Bank in Hong Kong as a managing director and senior relationship manager. Prior to LGT, he worked for Mirabaud.
Financial trading and execution services firm GAIN Capital Holdings appointed Alex Howard as managing director, Asia-Pacific . The role was a newly-created one. Howard is responsible for the overall strategic execution and performance of GAIN's retail business in Australia, Singapore, Japan and Southeast Asia. Howard will be based in GAIN's Singapore office. Prior to this, Howard was most recently head of Asia-Pacific, overseeing IG Group's operations in Japan, South Africa, Singapore, Australia and China.
One of Swiss private bank REYL & Cie's senior partners moved back to the Alpine state after a spell of building out its business in Asia. Nicholas Duchêne, who moved to Geneva, joined fellow partners François Reyl, Pasha Bakhtiar, Christian Fringhian and Lorenzo Rocco di Torrepadula. The move meant that Duchêne's previous role as chief executive of REYL Singapore Pte was taken up by Antoine Denaiffe. Duchêne began his career at Arthur Andersen in Luxembourg and Ferrier Lullin & Cie in Geneva.
Standard Chartered appointed Ravi Ramakrishnan as managing director, market head, Global South Asian Community , private banking. The firm also appointed Sajith Menon and Benedict John as directors and relationship managers of GSAC. Ramakrishnan is based in Singapore, reporting to Srinivas Siripurapu, regional head, private banking, ASEAN and South Asia, and global head, GSAC. Ramakrishnan has more than 20 years of corporate and private banking experience, working at HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada and Clariden Leu in the Africa, Asia, North America and the Middle East markets. Most recently, he was managing director, market head, Middle East and Africa at DBS Private Banking.
Also based in Singapore, Menon and John report to Vishal Jain, managing director, market head, South and South East Asia, private banking. Prior to joining the bank, both were directors in private banking at Bank of Singapore.
DBS Group appointed Tham Sai Choy to the boards of the group and DBS Bank. Until his retirement in 2017 as the chairman of KPMG in Asia-Pacific, he was a member of KPMG’s global board.
With more than 13 years' experience covering front-office and C-suite positions in private wealth management, Hollands has formerly held senior roles in Central and Eastern Europe in recruitment, as well as in business process outsourcing industries. Hollands was a British Army officer in the 14th/20th King's Hussars and served in various theatres, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991 as a tank commander; and as a jungle warfare instructor in Brunei with service in Hong Kong, the UK and Germany. Hollands has been a long-standing contributor on the WealthBriefingAsia private banking awards panel.