The business, which has offices in a number of financial centres, opened a branch in Singapore this spring.

Cohen & Steers, the investment house concentrating on sectors such as real estate, infrastructure and commodities, has named a head of wealth for Asia-Pacific, Liyen Wee. Her remit covers Asia, excluding Japan; she is based in Singapore and reports to David Conway, head of international wholesale distribution.

Wee, who has more than 18 years of sales and client relationship experience in the asset management industry, most recently served as director of the financial intermediaries’ group at Lazard Asset Management where she led the Southeast Asia financial intermediaries and wholesale distribution business. Prior to joining Lazard in 2021, Wee was director and head of distribution sales at Amundi Asset Management; she also worked at Aberdeen and OCBC Asset Management.

“We are seeing emerging investor interest in Asia to allocate to real assets and alternative income strategies, including listed real estate, infrastructure and multi-strategy real assets, to provide diversification and total return potential in an environment of elevated inflation,” Conway said. “Liyen’s experience establishing and managing relationships with financial intermediaries will be instrumental in Cohen & Steers’ ability to serve clients in Asia-Pacific and Singapore specifically, which has become a regional growth hub for wealth management.”

This May, the firm founded in 1986, appointed Abhi Shroff as senior vice president and head of institutional distribution, Asia-Pacific. Cohen & Steers also established the Singapore office. The business is based in New York City, with offices in London, Dublin, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the aforementioned Singapore.