Moves and hires in the Asia-Pacific wealth management sector during November 2018.

Summary of Asia-Pacific moves for November 2019
BNP Paribas Wealth Management appointed Henry Hui as head of structured investments and derivatives, Asia, based in Hong Kong and reporting into Lemuel Lee, deputy head of investment services, Asia-Pacific. Hui is responsible for originating, structuring and marketing structured products to clients across all asset classes. With more than 15 years of financial services experience, Hui was previously head of equities advisory and sales trading, Hong Kong for Bank of Singapore, where he specialised in advisory and execution for equities and multi-assets structured products.

DBS, which wants to build a “strategic hub” in Dubai, appointed Rudiger von Wedel as head of international business, DBS Private Bank. Based in Dubai, he takes over from Rob Ioannou, who moved to lead DBS’ wealth, trust and estate planning business, as well as driving the build out of DBS’ single family office offering and Australian desk. Von Wedel, who reports to Lawrence Lua, deputy head of private bank, is a veteran in the industry and was most recently CEO of the global wealth division of the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD).

BlackRock namned a new Asia-Pacific boss. Dr Geraldine Buckingham took over as chair and head of the business in the Asia-Pacific region. She succeeded Ryan Stork, who becomes deputy global chief operating officer, based in New York. 

Dr Buckingham, who is senior managing director, is also global head of corporate strategy at BlackRock and a member of its global executive committee. She previously served as head of Americas corporate strategy. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2014, Dr Buckingham was a partner with McKinsey & Company’s financial services practice based in New York. Previously, Stork was the global head of the Aladdin Business within BlackRock Solutions in New York. (Aladdin is BlackRock’s fully-integrated investment management technology platform.) Within that business, Stork was responsible for client relationships and business development, as well as the implementation and delivery of Aladdin services and its third-party investment accounting business.

Singapore’s ruling party – the People’s Action Party – promoted the jurisdiction’s finance minister to a role that made him likely to become prime minister ahead of an expected transfer of power in the next couple of years. The party named Heng Swee Keat, 57, as the first assistant secretary-general of the People’s Action Party. This is typically the role held by a leader-in-waiting for a top job. The PAP named his role on its website, along with that of other senior figures.

Hong Kong-listed Ping An named Steven Winegar as overseas company lawyer and general counsel. He will be responsible for legal and compliance matters globally. Winegar has over 24 years of experience in law firm and in-house positions. He began his career in the US as a corporate attorney at Shearman & Sterling and Goldman Sachs. He moved to Hong Kong with Goldman Sachs in 2005, becoming managing director and senior counsel at the bank, before returning to private practice in 2010 when he joined Paul Hastings. He served as partner and chair of Paul Hastings' Hong Kong office before joining Ping An in September.

HSBC made several hires in its Asia-Pacific retail banking and wealth management team located in Hong Kong. The head of digital for Asia-Pacific, Andrew Connell, moved to a new role of global head of partnership development and innovation. The HSBC Digital Solutions head of delivery, Dan Phipps, was appointed head of digital business for RBWM Asia-Pacific, responsible for setting and executing the bank's Asia-Pacific digital strategy. The RBWM Asia-Pacific head of digital product management, Tamara van den Ban, took on the newly-created role of chief customer officer of HSBC Digital Solutions.

Standard Chartered Private Bank appointed Tracy Chan as director for managed investments distribution. Chan is based in Hong Kong. Chan provides advice on managed investment solutions to Standard Chartered’s relationship managers, investment advisors and clients in Hong Kong. She reports to Jason Yeung, head of managed investments distribution for Hong Kong. Before this, Chan was director of funds and exchange-traded funds at HSBC Private Banking for two years. Before that, she was a director at Swiss bank Julius Baer.

Aberdeen Standard Investments appointed Thibaut Ferret as senior solutions director for Asia-Pacific, based in Hong Kong. As part of the business’s global strategic client solutions team, Ferret oversees delivery of customised investment solutions to institutional clients in Asia. It was a newly-created role for the firm. Ferret reports to Ian McDonald, global head of strategic client solutions, based in London. Ferret has 17 years of experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining ASI in October 2018, he was head of asset-liability management (ALM) for Sun Life Hong Kong and regional head of investments for AXA Asia.

Union Bancaire Privée Alfred Tsai as Asia vice chair. Based in Hong Kong, Tsai reports locally to Eric Morin, head of North Asia and Hong Kong branch chief executive, and regionally to Michael Blake, head of the region and CEO for Asia. Most recently, Tsai headed the China market for BNP Paribas Wealth Management. He held senior management positions at investment and private banks including Citibank, UBS, Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch and Julius Baer.

Citigroup appointed Fabio Fontainha as head of retail banking for Asia-Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is a segment covering wealth management for mass affluent and high net worth individuals but not including the private bank, which serves those more towards the ultra-high net worth end of the spectrum. Fontainha replaced Gonzalo Luchetti, who was named Asia-Pacific and EMEA consumer banking head a few months before. Fontainha reports to Luchetti. The new appointee oversees Citi’s retail banking and wealth management businesses across 12 markets in APAC and five in EMEA, Poland, Russia, the UK, the UAE and Bahrain. Prior to his latest appointment, Fontainha had been the ASEAN cluster head for the Asia-Pacific consumer banking business since December 2016. He joined the US banking giant in 1994. 

Tan Su Shan, the group head of consumer banking and wealth management at DBS – and a recent winner of a lifetime achievement award by this publication – took over from Jeanette Wong as group head of institutional banking. Wong retires at the start of March this year. Tan joined DBS in June 2010 as group head of wealth management, before she took on a wider role that included overseeing the consumer banking arm. Her period in the role has seen DBS expand both organically and through its purchase of the Asian private banking arms of Societe Generale and and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. Sim S Lim, presently DBS’ Singapore country head, succeeded Tan Su Shan in her consumer banking and wealth management role. 

Shee Tse Koon, DBS’ group head of strategy and planning, took over as Singapore country head. Lim, a 35-year banking veteran, joined DBS in September 2010 as country head, DBS Singapore, a then newly-created role. Shee has almost 25 years of banking experience, and these include 22 years at Standard Chartered Bank, which spanned front and back office roles, with stints in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Prior to joining DBS in September 2016, he was country head of Standard Chartered Indonesia.

EFG International named a new chief risk officer, Ranjit Singh; he succeeded Thomas A Mueller, who was elected to Raiffeisen Switzerland’s board a few days ago. He reports to chief executive Giorgio Pradelli. Most recently, Singh served as group chief risk officer and group executive of Standard Life Aberdeen in Edinburgh and London from 2013 to 2018. Prior to that, he served as group chief risk officer of Swiss Re in Zurich, from 2007 to 2011. From 2002 to 2007, he was in a similar role at Allianz SE in Germany. He has a bachelor of science in business administration from Winona State University in Minnesota, USA, and a master of business administration in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, USA.

Avaloq appointed Martin Greweldinger to the newly-formed post of group chief product officer. Greweldinger reports to Juerg Hunziker, group CEO, and is responsible for connecting client and market requirements and translating them into product and service offerings. Previously, Greweldinger was at The Boston Consulting Group where he was a principal and member of the financial institutions and technology advantage practice areas. Prior to that, he worked for a number of top-tier financial institutions for more than 15 years, including Commerzbank, Credit Suisse and Dresdner Bank. He spent a significant time of his professional life in Asia-Pacific.

A prominent wealth management figure in Asia and the Middle East, Gary Dugan, took up the position of chief executive of Purple Asset Management, a new joint venture. Dugan is based in Singapore. The JV was set up by The Fry Group, a global financial advisory group, and Independent Strategic Group, a fintech firm specialising in digital investment management solutions. Dugan, who relocated to Singapore from Dubai, was most recently chief investment officer for Namara Wealth Advisors from July 2017 to July 2018; prior to that, he was CIO for Emirates NDB in the UAE for about 18 months, and before that, was CIO at National Bank of Abu Dhabi, also for about 18 months. Well known to this publication and an occasional speaker at its events, Dugan has also been a CIO for Asia and Middle East at Coutts.

LJ Partnership, which is rebranding as Avarium Investments, appointed Neill O'Brien as managing director. O'Brien joined the firm's wholly-owned investment and advisory subsidiary, Guggenheim Investment Advisors (Hong Kong), the entity that LJ Partnership bought in 2016. O’Brien has more than 10 years of experience in real estate advisory, counselling Asian real estate clients on acquisitions, dispositions, JVs, debt and equity raising, as well as leasing and ownership strategy. Based in Hong Kong, his real estate advisory expertise complements GIA HK’s existing asset management capability.

JP Morgan Private Bank in Asia appointed Alex Wolf as head of client investment strategy. This was a new role for the bank. Wolf previously served as a senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments conducting economic and geopolitical research, helping to establish and communicate the house view.

Sandaire, the multi-family office operating in the UK and Asia, appointed Marc Cane as the new head of risk and compliance. Cane joined from WH Ireland wealth management, where he was head of compliance and money laundering reporting officer. The sector veteran has had a number of senior posts, including eight years at the creative investment group Ingenious Media and three years at Permal.
Investec Asset Management appointed Marco Tang as head of advisor business for Greater China, a newly-created role. Tang manages and drives Investec’s advisory businesses across the region. Based in Hong Kong, he reports to Eric Fu, managing director and country head, Greater China of Investec Asset Management. Bringing close to 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Tang joined Investec Asset Management from Neuberger Berman Asia where he was the head of retail business for mainland China and Hong Kong.

Wealth Dynamix, or WDX, the client lifecycle specialist firm, launched operations in Singapore, adding to offices in New York, Toronto and Zurich earlier this year. The firm recruited Dominic Gamble as its Asia-Pacific head; he is based in the Asian city-state. Gamble, who has more than 18 years' experience in the wealth management sector, worked at Credit Agricole Indosuez, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Wealth Management. Most recently, he founded findaWEALTHMANAGER.com, a matchmaking service for wealth firms and clients, filling a space in the sector where high net worth persons sometimes struggle to find the most suitable organisation for their needs.

Four portfolio managers were added to Aberdeen Standard Investment teams in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Edmund Goh joined in Shanghai where he will focus on China sovereign bonds and credit investing. Aaron Ni joined him to cover onshore China credits. Prior to this, Ni specialised in credit analysis at Ping An Asset Management. Stella Li completed the Shanghai trio and focuses on China equities. She previously worked as an equity research analyst with Macquarie Securities. The fourth hire was Alec Jin, who joined the Asian equities team in Hong Kong, where he covers China and Hong Kong listed stocks. Before this, he was a director at Standard Chartered working on the leveraged finance team.

UBS created two new country country teams in the China International business of the bank. The teams are led by Ann Qian and Fritz Chan. Ann Qian has more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry.  She joined UBS in 2007 as a client advisor and has been a desk head for the China International team since 2011.  She has built a Prior to UBS, Ann held various managerial positions at ICBC Asia and ICBC Zhejiang, servicing financial institutions and international businesses. 

Fritz Chan joined UBS in 2013 as a desk Head for the China International team. Prior to UBS, he was head of business management at Barclays Wealth and Senior Manager at BNP Paribas Wealth Management.

HSBC's private bank added new personnel to its investment services and product solutions (ISPS) team in Singapore. The team includes people serving high net worth clients with more than $5 million of investable assets. The appointees were Tay Li Choo, head of fixed income for ISPS, Southeast Asia; Justin Bramley, head of investment counsellors, ISPS, at Southeast Asia, and Roy Teo, head of foreign exchange and commodities, ISPS, Southeast Asia. The trio report to Kenneth Teo, who heads up the ISPS team in the Southeast Asia region.