The Australia-headquartered bank has appointed an ex-Unilever finance director to its Asian leadership team.

Westpac has hired Sneha Sanghvi as its new head of financial markets for Asia.

Sanghvi joins from Unilever where she was finance director, global commodities and chemicals, leading a team responsible for the risk management of Unilever's global commodities portfolio. She previously held senior positions at Morgan Stanley and HSBC in fixed income sales, structuring and trading areas covering Asian markets.

Based in Singapore, Sanghvi will head up a team of foreign exchange and debt market specialists to provide investment, financing and hedging solutions for customers across Asia. She will report to Balaji Swaminathan, general manager of Westpac International in Singapore, and Michael Correa, head of corporate and international origination and distribution in Sydney.

Sanghvi takes over from Michael Bass, who recently relocated to the bank's London office to assume the role of head of corporate and institutional distribution, Europe and Americas.