Here is a summary of all the major wealth management senior moves and appointments in Asia during September, typically a busy month following the vacation season, although one disrupted heavily by the pandemic.

Global multi-family office Alvarium Investments appointed Peter Golovsky as managing director and head of family office services for Asia-Pacific. He is based in Hong Kong. The native Australian and chartered accountant left private banking roles in Australia at Macquarie and Westpac for Hong Kong in 2011 in order to advise some of Asia’s largest families and family offices. Golovsky has been in senior private wealth, risk management, corporate governance and audit roles in both Australia and the US. He was most recently MD and head of private wealth, Asia, for IQ-EQ, based in Hong Kong.

The Financial Markets Authority, the New Zealand regulator, appointed Karen Chang as acting general counsel until the FMA’s new chief executive – Samantha Barrass - joins in 2022. Chang is head of enforcement. Chang’s appointment followed the appointment of Liam Mason, the current general counsel, as acting chief executive. Mason took up the acting CEO role after Rob Everett left the FMA at the end of October.

Previously a senior Crown prosecutor at Meredith Connell, Chang joined the FMA as head of enforcement in 2017. 

State Street Global Advisors, part of State Street, appointed four individuals for its exchange-traded funds business in the Asia-Pacific region. Kathleen Gallagher was appointed as head of SPDR ETFs Australia, in addition to her role as head of ETF Model Portfolios Asia-Pacific and EMEA. 

Marie Tsang joined as an SPDR fixed income strategist for Asia Pacific. Jean Gan joined as an SPDR fixed income sales specialist for Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, and Robin Tsui expanded his role to include being Asia-Pacific gold strategist and gold sales specialist for Hong Kong. (SPDR is the firm’s ETF brand.)

Gallagher, Tsang, Gan and Tsui are based in Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively. All four individuals report to Meaghan Victor, head of SPDR ETFs Asia-Pacific distribution at State Street Global Advisors, who is based in Sydney.

Law firm Stephenson Harwood appointed partner Suzanne Johnson to join its Singapore office. She added to its international private wealth capabilities. Johnston specialises in international tax and wealth planning, with a focus on advising high net worth individuals, professional trustees, family offices and private banks based in the UK and Asia. Previously at UBS, Johnston has worked across different practice areas within private wealth, and in multiple jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. Her experience has been bolstered by having lived and worked in the region for nearly a decade.

AMP Capital named Bopha Ly as managing director, Energy, for its infrastructure equity business. In this role, Ly is responsible for AMP Capital’s energy infrastructure investments, including Endeavour Energy, Macarthur Wind Farm, and Powerco in New Zealand. Ly, who has almost 24 years’ industry experience, was formerly at AGL Energy, where she served in several senior roles, most recently as head of corporate development; she also led much of AGL Energy’s M&A activity across the energy division. 

Thunes, the Singapore-based fintech company focused on areas such as global cross-border payments, appointed Irina Chuchkina as chief marketing officer and Babul Balakrishnan as head of customer care. Both individuals are based in Singapore.

Before joining Thunes, Chuchkina led global brand, communications, and social media marketing for Rapyd. She was also part of Southeast Asia super-app giant, Grab, where she helped to launch GrabPay, Grab’s mobile wallet, and GrabRewards, its loyalty platform. She spent several years with Visa, where she worked in Visa’s Innovation Centre team and led its marketing and communications efforts across Asia. Balakrishnan has more than two decades of experience across various industries with a focus on customer service and customer experience. He was most recently associate vice president of customer experience operations at StarHub, the Singaporean telco.

Investment firm T Rowe Price appointed Craig Hurt as its new head of institutional for Australia and New Zealand. Based in Sydney, Hurt reports to Darren Hall, head of distribution for Australia and New Zealand. Prior to this, Hurt spent 16 years with AXA Investment Managers where he had been the country head of Australia and New Zealand since 2007.

Nuveen appointed Gracee Teo as vice president and head of Southeast Asia, Institutional, in its Asia-Pacific franchise. Based in Singapore, she reports to Hong Kong-based senior managing director and head of Asia-Pacific and Middle East, Simon England-Brammer. Most recently, Teo was senior vice president of business development for institutions at Fullerton Asset Management, where she covered public and private sector names in the ASEAN region. She has also served in similar roles at Lion Global Investors, HSBC Global Asset Management and ABN AMRO Asset Management.

Citigroup appointed Rapheal Mun to the new position of head of sustainability and corporate transitions of the US-based group’s banking, capital markets and advisory group in Asia-Pacific. She relocated to Singapore from London. Mun, who is a senior banker in project and infrastructure finance for Europe, Middle East and Africa, reports to Jan Metzger, head of APAC BCMA with matrix reporting lines to Keith Tuffley and Amol Gupte, Citi country officer Singapore.

After six years as a senior banker for DBS in the region, Shankar Jha joined Deutsche Bank Wealth Management's Global South Asia (GSA) team as managing director and group head in Singapore. He reports to head of Global South Asia, Amrit Singh. The South Asia markets' veteran has also been a private banker and team leader at UBS and at Citibank, where he spent 13 years covering clients in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, India and the UK.

Deutche hired a second regional veteran, Sachin Thussu in Singapore, as a director and senior investment advisor. Thussu is part of the investment management team and reports to head of investment management for Global South Asia, Ritesh Goenka. Thussu has two decades' experience in foreign exchange, precious metals and asset advisory. Formerly he has worked at Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered Private Bank, and Citibank in London, Zurich and Singapore advising private wealth clients and institutions.

VP Bank Asia appointed former Pictet senior figure Alexander Tsikouras as chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Asia, and Will Wang as head of client solutions and strategic partnerships for Asia in two newly-created roles. 

Tsikouras is responsible for driving the bank’s strategic financial and operational efficiency in Asia.

Tsikouras reports regionally to Pamela Hsu Phua (CEO Asia), and functionally to Roger Barmettler (group CFO) and Urs Monstein (group COO). He has more than 20 years of experience with expertise in business development, change and risk management, finance and strategy. Joining from Pictet where he was chief of staff for Asia, he holds a PhD in finance from the University of Piraeus in Greece and a master’s in international accounting and finance from the London School of Economics.

Wang, who is based in Hong Kong, reports functionally to Pamela Hsu Phua (CEO Asia) and Thomas von Hohenhau (group head of client solutions). Prior to VP Bank, Wang was managing director and head of the investment committee at a Hong Kong SFC-regulated asset manager. He has more than 20 years of experience in private banking from front office, investments to management oversight in international locations spanning across Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland.

Goldman Sachs said that former McKinsey & Company senior figure Kevin Sneader had rejoined as co-president of Asia-Pacific ex-Japan alongside Todd Leland. Sneader, who had a 32-year career at McKinsey, most recently served as its global managing partner, a role he assumed in 2018. Sneader relocated to Hong Kong where he was based from 1996 to 1998 and again from 2014 to 2020.

HSBC Asset Management, part of HSBC, appointed a new direct real estate team as part of its strategy to build out its alternatives business.

Based in Singapore, the team is led by Victoria Sharpe, managing principal and head of real estate, Asia-Pacific, who joined HSBC AM on 1 September. Reporting to Joanna Munro, CEO of HSBC Alternatives, Sharpe is responsible for the strategic growth of the firm’s real estate platform across the region.

Sharpe brought nearly 40 years’ investment experience in real estate and investing on behalf of institutional investors globally to the role. She joined from DWS, where she had been responsible for building and leading its Asia-Pacific real estate business since 2016. Lionel Low and James Bartlett joined as managing principals, reporting to Sharpe. 

Low joined from Ascendas Asia Real Estate Fund Management (the regional investment manager of CapitaLand), where he had worked in a number of roles since 2013, most recently executive director and prior to this, head of China Funds. Bartlett joined from DWS, where he was real estate deputy CIO, Asia-Pacific and head of real estate, Australia.

In Singapore, the team work with and report locally to Patrice Conxicoeur, Singapore CEO and head of Southeast Asia, HSBC AM, to grow the real estate proposition.

Northern Trust appointed Leon Stavrou as head of its business in Australia and New Zealand. Stavrou was most recently a global services executive responsible for Northern Trust’s asset servicing operations across Australia and for ensuring the provision and development of its range of asset servicing solutions to clients across Asia-Pacific. He succeeded Angelo Calvitto, who was named as head of Northern Trust in Asia-Pacific in June this year, the firm said in a statement. 

Stavrou, who reports to Calvitto, has more than 20 years of experience of working within the asset servicing industry, with the last 11 years spent at Northern Trust. Prior to joining Northern Trust, Leon worked in management roles at National Australia Bank Asset Servicing.

Bank of Singapore appointed Vivienne Chia as its global head of investment advisory solutions. She is based in Singapore reporting to Lim Leong Guan, global head of products. She replaced Fidelis Oruche, who had been in the post since 2013; he took on a newly-created role as global head of alternative investments and managed solutions.

Chia brought with her more than 20 years of investment products advisory and management experience working in countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland, where she advised a global clientele base. She was most recently the head of structured products' origination and product management APAC at UBS Investment Bank, based in Singapore. Prior to this, she was the head of global capital markets Asia-Pacific at UBS Wealth Management.

Equities First Holdings, which concentrates on asset-backed financing, named former Nomura Wealth Management senior figure Johnny Heng as managing director and head of Singapore. Heng is responsible for leading the firm's origination strategies in the market while reporting to Gordon Crosbie-Walsh, chief executive for Asia.

A private wealth management veteran, Heng has more than 25 years of professional financial services experience. He was most recently chief client officer at Nomura Wealth Management, overseeing all key client relationships. 

Deutsche Bank Wealth Management appointed Divik Maheshwari as a senior foreign exchange advisor and team lead of Southeast Asia forex advisory. The German bank brought back a man who had worked for it from 2007 to 2011. Based in Singapore, he reports to Coo-Way Law, managing director, head of Southeast Asia investment management. 

Maheshwari worked as portfolio manager trading forex, rates and equities with ExodusPoint Capital and Millennium Capital. Prior to this, he was with Credit Suisse advising ultra-high net worth individuals in private banking and advising institutional clients in global markets. He was with Deutsche Bank from 2007 to 2011, handling corporate forex in global markets in Mumbai, India.

Maybank Kim Eng Securities (Thailand), which provides wealth management as part of its range of services, appointed Arapat Sangkharat as chief executive and non-independent executive director with immediate effect. He succeeds Montree Sornpaisarn who retired on 30 June 2021. Sangkharat joined the firm in August 2020 as deputy CEO and regional head, transformation, Maybank Kim Eng Group. Sangkharat has more than 24 years’ experience in financial services and management consulting in Asia and the US.