There were some high-profile moves in the Asia wealth management market in November, with the departure, for example, of Bank of Singapore CEO and luminary Renato de Guzman.

Australia
Buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, or KKR, appointed Matthew Claughton as a director in Sydney for its KKR Capstone business. Claughton most recently was group general manager of Pacific Brands' Workwear business unit, and previously managed the group's business development, human resources and international business across Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

The A$6 billion ($5.02 billion) private investment vehicle of Australian billionaire James Packer, Consolidated Press Holdings, recruited Robert Rankin, former senior Deutsche Bank executive to be its chief executive.

ClearView, the wealth manager, made a string of senior appointments after its merger with Matrix Planning Solutions.  Todd Kardash wa named chief executive officer of the combined dealer group - ClearView Financial Advice and Matrix Planning Solutions. Since January 2013 he has led both the dealer group and distribution businesses of ClearView. Tanya Seale becomes the head of advice and Mike Pope takes on the role of head of business development.

Christopher Blaxland-Walker became general manager distribution, while Atit Rungta - formerly chief operating officer of Matrix Planning Solutions - was appointed head of platforms. Rungta reports to Chris Blaxland-Walker in this new role. (ClearView is not connected to ClearView Financial Media, publisher of this news service.)

China
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group named Huang Xiaoguang as chief executive for China, reporting to the CEO for international banking, Farhan Faruqui.
Huang serves in a wider capacity as ANZ’s head of Greater China, responsible for capturing trade and investment flows within Greater China. He previously worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was president of Bank America China from 2010 to 2014 and was recently appointed as co-head of global corporate and investment banking for BAML China. In his 22-year career, he has worked in senior roles at ABN AMRO, Citigroup as well as BAML.

The chief risk officer for ANZ China, Hong Swee Lau, continued as acting CEO China until Huang joins in January next year. AN Z also named Scott Collary as its chief information officer. He reports to ANZ Group COO Alistair Currie. Collary was previously CIO Consumer North America and Global Cards with Citigroup.

Hong Kong
Old Mutual Global Investors, part of UK-listed Old Mutual, appointed Diamond Lee to its Asian equities team as portfolio manager, reporting into Josh Crabb, head of Asian equities. He began in London and was due to transfer back to Hong Kong when regulatory approvals are granted. Diamond joined from Ignis Asset Management where he managed several of its Asian equity funds.

LGM Investments Limited, a part of BMO Global Asset Management, appointed Stephen Ma as head of Greater China equities. Based in Hong Kong, Ma reports directly to Thomas Vester, chief investment officer at LGM. Ma joined from Fidelity, where he was a portfolio manager and responsible for approximately $4 billion of assets in China and Hong Kong Funds.
Executive search firm Sheffield Haworth appointed Christopher Smailes as executive director, asset management practice, based in New York and Hong Kong. Smailes joined from global executive search boutique Eban International. He began his career in 2002 when he joined FSS, a search boutique servicing asset management and investment banking clients.

Vencie Fung, who handled recruitment for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, joined UBS as a director in the human resources team, responsible for the wealth management space. Fung reports in her role to Rebecca Liew, who is executive director in the Swiss bank’s human resources team.

India
ASK Group, the India-based financial services group, appointed a former Barclays wealth management senior figure as its chief operating officer of its ASK Wealth Advisors Pvt business. It named Deepak Rattan to the COO slot; he has almost 20 years of experience in the financial services sector, mainly in the investment advisory, management, consulting and syndication areas. Before he joined ASK Group, he worked at Barclays Wealth & Investment Management, where he was designated director and team leader in India.

Japan
Japan-headquartered Nikko Asset Management announced a number of moves.
It appointed three executives to lead, respectively, client development in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, consultant relations on a global basis and sales in North Asia.

John Howland-Jackson, based in London, joined as the firm’s vice chairman of Nikko Asset Management Europe and senior advisor for the Middle East, Africa and Asia region. A financier with more than 40 years of experience, Howland-Jackson most recently worked as a senior managing director at ING Bank.

Ian Lewis, based in Singapore, assumed the position of head of global consultant relations. Lewis has more than 25 years of experience in the financial industry and worked for companies including UBS Global Asset Management and Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson). He was most recently a partner at Ardevora Asset Management.

Charles Allard, based in Hong Kong, was made head of sales, North Asia. Nikko Asset Management is aiming to extend its reach toward sophisticated investors in the region, where it has a successful joint venture in place with Rongtong Fund Management, it said. llard has 25 years experience in the financial industry, most of it spent in Asia. He previously worked for Winton Capital Management.

Singapore
Allocated Bullion Solutions, the Singapore-based brokerage in precious metals that works with wealth management clients, among others, appointed an independent non-executive board of directors and a new chairman. It also said it is “building momentum” for a new platform release in the first three months of 2015. The chairman is Victor Liew; other members of the board are Ronny Tan; Kazuaki Takabatake and Michael Stanhope.

The chief executive of Bank of Singapore, Renato de Guzman – or Bing, as he is known to many – is retiring from the post on 31 January next year, with senior BoS executive Bahren Shaari taking over the role.