Mizuho Securities Asia names two industry veterans to be its chairman and president and chief executive.

Mizuho Securities Asia, a subsidiary of Japan-headquartered Mizuho Securities, has announced a new chairman and chief executive. 

Effective 1 April 2014, Kentaro Akashi becomes chairman of the firm, while Seiichiro Miyaoka assumes the role of president and chief executive.

Akashi has been with the company for 30 years and has held various senior positions within the Mizuho Group in Japan and the US. Before joining Mizuho Securities Asia, he was executive officer and general manager of Mizuho Bank Hong Kong, where he worked for the last four years.

Miyaoka started his career at Nomura in 1988 and worked there for more than 20 years, including stints in London and Singapore, where his last position was president and CEO of the Singapore office. He subsequently left Nomura to join UBS Securities Japan as managing director, head of DCM/syndicate. He joined Mizuho in February 2013 and in May of the same year relocated to Hong Kong and was named deputy president of Mizuho Securities Asia.

Both Akashi and Miyaoki are now based in Hong Kong.

Also newly appointed is Paul Andersson as regional head of equities for Asia ex-Japan in Hong Kong. Prior to this, he spent 15 years at Citi where his latest role was head of pan-Asian equity derivative and convertible sales. Before that, he was Citi's head of equity sales for the Americas. In his new role, he reports locally to Miyaoka and globally to Yohei Osade, the global head of pan-Asian equities. In addition to overseeing the pan-Asia equities and convertible bond desks locally in Hong Kong and Singapore, he will also serve as head of global Asian equity sales ex-Japan. 

Mizuho Securities Asia specialises in equity and fixed income sales and trading, regional research, ECM and corporate finance, DCM and M&A advisory.