While August is not the busiest of months for corporate moves, the period was by no means quiet, with this publication getting several scoops on high-profile changes.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group added Ilana Atlas, a prominent businesswoman, to its board. She is a director of Coca-Cola Amatil, Westfield Corporation and Treasury Corporation of New South Wales. She was formerly a director of Suncorp Group and is chair of Bell Shakespeare Company.

Bravura Solutions promoted Terry McCann, previous head of IT, hosting services to the role of chief information officer. The role is a newly-created one. Prior to joining Bravura, McCann was a director at DST Global Solutions.

Commonwealth Bank commenced a series of reshuffles to its executive team following the resignation of group heads. Grahame Peterson, group executive for business and private banking, was set to retire at the end of 2014 after nearly 35 years with the CBA group. Simon Blair stepped down from his role of group executive, international financial services and also from his position on the executive committee due to personal reasons. He continues to represent the CBA group on boards in China, New Zealand and the UK. Rob Jesudason, group executive, group strategic development, was due to take over the role from Blair in November 2014 having joined the CBA group in 2011.

The Royal Bank of Canada's Wealth Management division added a managing director and co-head of brokerage and futures to its Hong Kong office. Joel Goh assumed both roles and joined fellow co-head David Ka. The pair report to Michael Yong-Haron, managing director and head of RBC Wealth Management in North Asia. Goh's role was created as part of "expanded leadership" for brokerage and futures, a spokesperson told this publication. Goh moved from Julius Baer, where he was latterly market manager for China.

Vivien Webb, formerly a managing director at Goldman Sachs, joined Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm in Hong Kong in a senior management role.
It is understood the move was part of efforts by the US-listed bank to build out its Asian wealth management operation. Further details about Webb's exact business title and reporting responsibility are unclear at this stage.

Manulife Asset Management, part of Canada-based Manulife, appointed Peter Warnes to the newly-created position of head of portfolio solutions group, international. Warnes is based in Hong Kong. He previously worked for JP Morgan Asset Management.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group appointed Ivy Au Yeung as chief executive for Hong Kong, reporting to the CEO for international banking, Farhan Faruqui. Ms Au Yeung had been acting CEO Hong Kong since June 2014. Prior to her current appointment, she led ANZ’s commercial business in Asia and the Pacific, having joined ANZ in 2011 following a 20-year international banking career with Standard Chartered.

Mumbai, India-based firm, Waterfield Advisors, appointed wealth management figure Munish Randev as its chief investment officer for its multi-family office business and Amit Shah as director, corporate advisory services. Randev has more than 19 years of experience in various functions of investment advisory, including portfolio advisory, product management, broking and asset management. Prior to joining Waterfield, he worked with Avendus Wealth, Fidelity Funds group and ABN AMRO. Shah has more than 18 years of experience in investment banking and various related financial services functions. He has worked across geographies including Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

Eastspring Investments Japan - the asset management arm of Prudential Corporation Asia - appointed Tsukasa Sekizaki as president and chief executive officer. Sekizaki began his Tokyo based role in mid-September, he joined from Deutsche Bank where he was president and chief executive of Deutsche Trust Company Limited and Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management. His appointment followed the resignation of Koji Wada. He will report to Michele Bang, Eastspring's Hong Kong-based deputy chief executive.

BNY Mellon appointed Douglas Hymas as country executive for Japan and general manager of the company’s Tokyo branch. He replaced Thom Fisher who left BNY Mellon earlier this year; Fisher has subsequently relocated to London. Hymas is the chief strategist, leader and senior representative for the company’s business groups with regulators and clients. He reports to Gregory Roath, Asia-Pacific head of global client management. Hymas has 20 years of experience in the investment management and investment services industry. He was most recently president and chief executive officer of ING Mutual Funds Investment Company (Japan), having previously held senior management roles at Wells Fargo Securities (Japan), Legg Mason Asset Management Japan, Barclays Global Investors and Lehman Brothers.

Terence Bong, the head of the international private bank sales team in Asia at Schroders, left the company. Bong was replaced by Albert Tse, head of intermediary distribution for South East Asia.

Three appointments were made at investment firm KKR in its Singapore office to help grow its Indonesian offering: Jaka Prasetya, Rahul Bhargava and Allan So.
Prasetya joined as managing director and will take charge of KKR’s Indonesian efforts, in conjunction with the firm’s private equity, credit and special situations team. He also took responsibility for the firm’s credit and special situations initiative for Southeast Asia. Bhargava and So joined as directors and support Prasetya in his running of KKR’s Southeast Asian credit business. The trio moved from Leafgreen Capital Partners, which Prasetya founded and previously served as its managing director. Bhargava and So held the roles of managing directors and partners.

Former Bank of Japan governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, was been appointed as a distinguished visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore Business School from 25 August 2014 to 10 September 2014.

Union Bancaire Privée named the head of its new regional multi-family office platform in Singapore. It appointed Joerg Hansen, formerly of DBS Private Bank. Other hires at the unit included Cheryl Ng, who also previously worked at DBS, and Ong lu-Jin, who is head of the multi-family office. Among previous roles, Hansen covered ultra high net worth individuals at Bank of Singapore. Prior to joining that bank in 2012, he worked for Credit Suisse and Julius Baer.

David Chong, chairman of Portcullis group of companies, been re-elected as president of the Singapore Trustees Association. His term of office in the role is two years.
Chong is the founder of the Portcullis group of firms.

Global specialist law firm Dechert opened a new office in Singapore as part of its expansion in Asia. Dean Collins serves as the office managing partner. Collins focuses his practice on private equity, real estate, venture capital and hedge funds in Asia.

Neo Teng Hwee joined the private banking arm of Singapore-headquartered United Overseas Bank as chief investment officer. Other roles included that of research associate at EDHEC-Risk Institute; managing director, senior advisor at Julius Baer; deputy chief investment officer at ING and senior portfolio manager at Candriam and portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Management.

BNP Paribas saw a number of changes. Kimmis Pun joined the French bank as managing director and team head, responsible for building the China business for BNP Paribas in Singapore. She reports to Alfred Tsai, who is global market manager, China). She was formerly an executive director for UBS Wealth Management, where she focused on China. She joined the UBS in 2007 as a senior private banker. Prior to this, she worked for eight years as the market leader for Singapore and China for HSBC Private Bank. Ken Wong, a senior private banker in Singapore, stepped down; he worked in the key client group, focusing on ultra high net worth markets and is a BNP Paribas veteran. It also appointed Paul Yang as regional head for Greater China, as well as head of country for China. The responsibilities are in addition to his roles of head of country for Hong Kong and CEO of BNP Paribas’ Hong Kong Branch. Based in Hong Kong, Yang reports to Eric Raynaud, chief executive officer of BNP Paribas Asia Pacific.