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Summary Of Senior Moves In Asia-Pacific Wealth Management – January 2022
Editorial Staff
15 May 2024
HSBC appointed Fidelis Oruche as global head of its capital markets and investments and wealth solutions (IWS) platforms for its wealth and personal banking business. He is based in Singapore. With two decades of financial services experience, he joined from Bank of Singapore, where he was most recently managing director, head of alternative investments and managed solutions. Offshore law firm Carey Olsen promoted corporate lawyer Tiffy Wan to counsel in the firm's Hong Kong SAR office. Wan joined Carey Olsen in 2021. Fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, Wan was admitted as a solicitor in New South Wales, Australia in 2010 and is currently a Registered Foreign Lawyer with the Law Society of Hong Kong and a Bermuda Registered Associate with the Supreme Court of Bermuda.
Union Bancaire Privée appointed former China Construction Bank (Asia) figure Victor Suen to join its Greater China team. Suen, whose job title is managing director and team head for the Greater China market, reports to Jonathan Lin, market head, Greater China. He is based in Singapore. At China Construction Bank (Asia), Suen was deputy head of relationship management. Previously, he served in senior roles at Everbright Sun Hung Kai, HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong).
ING appointed Darren Beatty as its head of real estate finance for Australia. Beatty took over from Wouter Mijnen, who returned to ING’s head office in Amsterdam following a five-year secondment in Australia. Beatty reports hierarchically to Margreet Rog-Stokkink, head of wholesale banking for Australia (interim) and functionally to Robert Scholten, head of real estate finance for Asia-Pacific. Beatty, a career banker, has more than 20 years’ industry experience. He joined from Westpac Institutional Bank, where he was senior director, institutional real estate.
Robeco appointed Thu Ha Chow to the newly-created role of head of fixed income Asia. Chow is based in the Singapore office. Prior to this role, Chow was portfolio manager and Asia strategist at Loomis Sayles & Co and head of Asian credit at Aberdeen Asset Management, both in Singapore. Previously, she worked for 15 years in London where she held senior fixed income positions at Deutsche Asset Management and Threadneedle Asset Management, in addition to three years in investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston.
Frank Reynaerts and Tiansi Wang, two senior investment professionals with careers at Robeco, continued in their roles as senior credit analysts. Laura Bosch Ferreté relocated to Singapore from Rotterdam to fill one of the sustainable investing specialist positions. David Hawa also moved from the Rotterdam office to join as fixed income client portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific.
DBS appointed former ING senior figure Helge Muenkel as chief sustainability officer, who took over from Mikkel Larsen. Last November, Larson moved to his role as chief executive at Climate Impact X (CIX), a joint venture of DBS, SGX, Standard Chartered Bank and Temasek. Muenkel worked at ING for 10 years, most recently as head of Asia-Pacific, sustainable finance and global capital markets. He was also part of ING’s global sustainable finance and capital markets management teams and the bank’s global sustainable finance quality board. Prior to ING, he spent more than 12 years in various roles at Deutsche Bank and UniCredit Group based in cities across Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific.
Rockpool Capital, the Hong Kong-based wealth management firm and multi-family office, appointed former JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group senior vice president, Corey Hamabata, to lead its real estate investment practice. Hamabata worked for more than 10 years at JLL, most recently as SVP in Hong Kong, while previously being based in Singapore and Los Angeles. Prior to JLL, he was at a boutique hotel real estate investment and development company based in Chicago covering acquisitions and development.
Citigroup appointed Li-Gang Liu as Asia-Pacific head of economic analysis for Citi Global Wealth Management (CGWM). Based in Hong Kong, he reports to Steven Wieting, chief investment strategist and chief economist for CGWM, and Roger Bacon, Asia-Pacific head of CGWM APAC Ultra High Net Worth Business. Before this, Li-Gang Liu was Citi Research’s chief economist for China from 2016. He has more than two decades of professional experience working in both public and private financial institutions. He was ANZ Bank’s chief economist for Greater China for more than six years.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, aka Ping An, appointed Benjamin Deng as its new chief investment officer. Deng took over – subject to regulatory approval – from Chan Tak Yin who continues to assume the role of director of the group’s investment management committee, responsible for the mid and back-end of investment management.
With a 20-year career in investment management, risk management and asset allocation, Deng was previously CIO of China Pacific Insurance (Group) and China Pacific Insurance Co (Hong Kong). Before that, he was head of Asia market risk management for AIG.
Chan Tak Yin, director of the group’s investment management committee, is responsible for reviewing major investment projects, assisting in risk management and risk-related alerts, as well as providing professional advice on investment strategies and operations. Zhang Xiaolu continues in her role as the group’s chief risk officer.
Citigroup named Stella Choe as head of Citigroup’s global subsidiaries group in Asia, which looks after financial institutions and multinationals. Choe replaced Munir Nanji who took on a new role as head of the Central Europe cluster and Citigroup country officer for Czech Republic. In this new role, she reports to Marc Merlino, global head of New York-based GSG, and Kaleem Rizvi, Asia-Pacific head of corporate banking. Choe relocated to Singapore from Australia.
Choe joined Citigroup in 2014 as head of the financial institutions group, corporate banking, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining Citigroup, she spent six years at HSBC Hong Kong working in regional acquisition finance and funds coverage. Prior to HSBC, she headed the EMEA leveraged and acquisition finance syndication division at Morgan Stanley.
PineBridge Investments, the asset management firm, appointed Nicolas Kopitsis as head of wealth management for Asia. Based in Singapore, Kopitsis focuses on increasing awareness and distribution of PineBridge’s investment capabilities to private banks and distribution platforms in the region. Kopitsis has more than 20 years of asset management experience.
Manulife Investment Management appointed Hong Kong-based Marc Franklin as managing director and senior portfolio manager, asset allocation. Franklin reports to Luke Browne, senior MD and head of asset allocation, Asia. With 14 years of investment industry experience, Franklin was most recently head of flexible multi-asset for NN Investment Partners in the Netherlands.
HSBC appointed two senior executives in its investments and wealth solutions group which comes under the Wealth and Personal Banking division: Wei Mei Tan and Michael Wong. Wei Mei Tan was appointed as global and Asia head of advisory, investments and wealth solutions, based in Singapore. Michael Wong was appointed as the regional head of ultra-high net worth solutions group, based in Hong Kong. The managers report to Stefan Lecher, regional head of investments and wealth solutions, Asia-Pacific. Michael Wong also reports to Patrick Boumalham, global head of the UHNW solutions group on a functional basis.
Union Bancaire Privée appointed Robert Phua as head of wealth planning for South Asia. Phua reports to Ranjit Khanna, head of South Asia and Singapore branch chief executive, and to Bertrand Binggeli, group co-head of wealth planning. Phua, who has more than 20 years’ experience, joined UBP from Julius Baer, where he provided wealth planning advisory services to the bank’s clients in Asia, including the structuring and setting up of trusts, family offices, fund entities and non-profit entities.
HSBC Asset Management appointed Cheong Mun Fai as senior vice president, ETF and indexing business development. Based in Singapore, Mun Fai reports to Jacqueline Pang, head of ETF and indexing sales, Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining HSBC Asset Management, Mun Fai was vice president at State Street Global Advisors, responsible for leading the SPDR ETF sales effort across the institutional and intermediary channels in Singapore.
Investment research firm Morningstar appointed Wing Chan as head of manager research, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Wing Chan was most recently director of manager research practice, EMEA and Asia, at Morningstar Investment Management Asia Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Morningstar. He is still based in Hong Kong.
Citi Vietnam appointed Ramachandran A S as its country officer. In this role Ramachandran A S, known as RamC, oversees Citigroup’s operations in the Southeast Asian country. A 27-year Citigroup veteran, RamC was previously global emerging markets coverage head for Citigroup’s global subsidiaries group in London. In that role, he was responsible for building the firm's business with the subsidiaries of multinational clients from rapidly globalising countries around the world.
Prudential Wealth Management appointed one of its senior figures in the UK-listed Prudential family of firms as its chief executive, based in Hong Kong. Benn Rudd is CEO, Prudential Wealth Management. Before this role, Rudd was chief wealth officer from March last year, based in Hong Kong, at Prudential Hong Kong, and chief investment officer at the same firm from February 2017 to March 2021.
Withers appointed Paul Jebely as a senior partner based in its Hong Kong office and head of its newly-launched global asset finance practice. Jebely joined from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, where he was managing partner of the Hong Kong office and co-chair of the firm's private wealth and asset finance practices.
Qiming Venture Partners, the Chinese venture capital firm overseeing funds of $6.2 billion, brought back Shiyu Wang as a partner. Shiyu Wang co-leads the TMT team, managing and investing in the internet and consumer sectors. Shiyu Wang previously worked at Qiming Venture Partners from 2012 to 2016.
Canada Life Asset Management appointed Jordan Sriharan as a fund manager in its multi-asset business. Sriharan works with Craig Rippe, head of multi-asset, in developing and running a range of mixed-asset investment strategies for advisors, discretionary fund managers and institutional investors. Prior to this, Sriharan was head of managed portfolio services at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management for eight years.