The investment house has brought over a senior manager from a rival house to bolster its Asia business development, creating a new role.

Fidelity International has appointed former senior BlackRock manager Doug Walls as head of product development for its Asia-Pacific and Japan operations, adding to moves to expand its products for clients in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Korea.

Walls begins his role today and is based in Hong Kong. He works with Mike Nikou, managing director of Fidelity International, who is responsible for the company’s wholesale business in Asia-Pacific, and with Judy Marlinski, president Japan. He will report to Paolo Federici, global head of product at Fidelity International. All existing product teams in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region will report to Walls in this newly created role, the firm said in a statement yesterday.

Walls has over 15 years’ experience in product development in the asset management sector. At BlackRock, he was head of product strategy and innovation for Asia and Australia, based from Sydney. Prior to this, Walls was head of product development at Barclays Global Investors in Australia where he spent a decade focusing on product initiatives and innovation, and client management. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and holds a Master of Science in investment analysis.

Fidelity International manages $273 billion of client assets.