Senior moves in the Asia-Pacific wealth management sector during March 2022.

Specialist debt advisory firm Arc & Co appointed former Coutts senior figure Paul Davies as regional chairman in Asia-Pacific. Davies has more than three decades of experience in the financial services industry, having held senior positions at NatWest Bank and Coutts in the UK, Switzerland, India and in Asia. For 15 years he was based in Singapore, building Coutts’ Asian business for high net worth clients in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, as well as for global Non-Resident Indians. His previous role was vice chairman of Coutts, Southeast Asia.

Franklin Templeton named Sweta Dugar as head of institutional business for Southeast Asia, excluding Malaysia. Richard Surrency, head of alternatives for Asia at the firm, was assigned to a newly-minted role: head of relationship management and client services for Asia. They both report to Tariq Ahmad, head of Asia distribution at Franklin Templeton. Dugar is based in Singapore. Before joining the US firm, she worked at BlackRock and Capital Group, working in business development and client relationship management serving clients across Asia. Surrency, who joined Franklin Templeton in 2020, is still based and works from Singapore.

Saxo Markets in Hong Kong appointed Redmond Wong as market strategist. Wong, who reports to Saxo Group’s chief economist and chief investment strategist, Steen Jakobsen, is responsible for communicating Saxo's global investment strategy, generating Hong Kong and mainland China focused research, and delivering actionable insights across different asset classes and tradable instruments. Based in Hong Kong, Wong also reports to Richard Douglas, CEO of Hong Kong.

Value Partners named Hyung Do Kim as senior director, head of ETF business and Korea sales. Based in Hong Kong, Kim reports to the group’s president, June Wong. Kim worked in both Hong Kong and Seoul. Previously, he was deputy head of the quantitative investment department at CSOP Asset Management in Hong Kong. Kim also served as the head of ETF investment team at Korea Investment Management in South Korea.

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management, or SuMi TRUST, appointed Hiroki Moritani as managing director of its London office, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust International Limited (SuMiTIL). Moritani took over from Yukihiro Murota who returned to the firm’s Tokyo headquarters. With 26 years’ experience in the financial industry, Moritani was previously general manager for global business, development, product management and distribution at SuMi TRUST’s global business development department in Tokyo.

UBS appointed two senior figures in its family advisory business for the Asia-Pacific market. Amy Lau was named family advisor and director, previously having worked at HSBC Global Private Banking, where she was director, family advisory. Andrew Lo was appointed head of family advisory and family office solutions for Greater China. He was a client advisor for the Hong Kong domestic market in UBS and, before that, worked at Coutts for a decade. 

Global multi-asset investment manager PineBridge Investments appointed Kirk Sweeney as chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific. Sweeney replaced Anthony Fasso who left the firm in December 2021. Based in Hong Kong, Sweeney is responsible for PineBridge’s APAC business and joined the firm’s management committee. He reports to PineBridge’s chief executive officer, Greg Ehret, who is based in New York. Sweeney held various leadership positions across the region for twenty years. Prior to joining PineBridge, he was head of Asia and CEO for Hong Kong at ExodusPoint. Before that, he was chief executive officer of Asia for Millennium Partners, and head of senior relationship management, Asia, at Barclays. Earlier in his career, he established a fixed income sales and structuring platform for Nomura for Asia ex-Japan, and worked at Lehman Brothers in various roles, including as Hong Kong country head and head of Asia fixed income sales.

HSBC appointed Asia’s Microsoft president, Andrea Della Mattea, as an independent non-executive director. Della Mattea has more than 25 years’ experience in the technology sector. Prior to Microsoft, Della Mattea served in senior leadership roles at Insight Enterprises and Software Spectrum. She has led companies in Australia, America and Asia Pacific.

Credit Suisse appointed former UBS senior Asia banker Hugo van Kattendijke as head of its external asset manager business for Asia-Pacific and as a member of its global EAM management committee. Van Kattendijke reports to Benjamin Cavalli, head of wealth management for APAC at the bank. Van Kattendijke is based in Singapore. At UBS, van Kattendijke led its EAM Asia-Pacific teams in Hong Kong and Singapore from 2018. He has served in a number of senior management roles, including head of asset servicing for APAC. 

Northern Trust Asset Management created a team of quantitative specialists focused on Asia-Pacific, based in Melbourne and Hong Kong. The team is led by Scott Bennett, based in Melbourne. Bennett joined the firm in 2018 to take up the newly-created role of head of quantitative research for Australia and New Zealand. Prior to this, he spent 14 years at global asset manager Russell Investments and has, during his career, worked in a range of roles in Australia and the US.

Manulife Investment Management promoted one of its senior figures, Hui-Jian Koh, to the role of chief executive, Singapore.  Koh retains her role as head of retail distribution and partnerships, Southeast Asia, it said. She reports to Michael Dommermuth, head of wealth and asset management, Asia for Manulife Investment Management. Koh joined Manulife Investment Management in 2019 as head of retail distribution and partnership, Singapore. Prior to this, she was head of product at Prudential, and before that, she was head of retail distribution at Eastspring Investments.

EY, the global accountancy and consulting firm, appointed Liew Nam Soon as the new country managing partner for Singapore and Brunei. He succeeded Max Loh, who was in the post from 2011. 

Liew Nam Soon is the EY Asean regional managing partner – a role he has been in since 2019 and continued to retain in addition to his new appointment. 

First Sentier Investors, part of by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, appointed Yoshiki Ueno as deputy chief executive officer. Based in New York, Ueno worked at FSI from August 2019 as head of US governance. In his new role, he moved to Sydney, working with chief executive Mark Steinberg to help carry out the firm’s strategy. Prior to his time at FSI, Ueno spent more than 20 years at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (The Trust Bank) in a variety of roles including corporate finance, strategy planning for asset management and investor services business, and project management office of integration projects.

BNY Mellon Investment Management appointed Clarence Chan as head of client solutions for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. Based in Singapore, Chan is responsible for building out the firm’s outsourced chief investment officer business in the APAC region. He reports to Doni Shamsuddin, head of Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) of BNY Mellon Investment Management.

Commercial real estate group CBRE appointed Luke Moffat as regional managing director, head of advisory and transaction services, Asia-Pacific. Moffat succeeded Manish Kashyap, who took on a senior leadership role in the company as global president, advisory and transaction services.

Moffat was most recently CBRE’s regional managing director, Eastern China and head of advisory and transaction services, Greater China. He relocated from Shanghai to Singapore. He has more than 20 years of experience in commercial real estate, and prior to joining CBRE, was a director at BlackRock in Singapore.

Value Partners Group appointed David Wong as managing director and chief risk officer. Wong has oversight and management control of the overall risk management function across the group’s Hong Kong headquarters and overseas offices. Based in Hong Kong, Wong reports to the group’s president, June Wong. David Wong, who has worked in Hong Kong and Japan, spent more than 20 years in the banking and asset management industry. Before this role, he was MD and regional head of internal audit, Asia-Pacific, at BlackRock. 

Standard Chartered in India appointed Saurabh Jain as its new head of wealth management. Jain took over from Samrat Khosla, who moved to a new role within the UK-listed bank. Jain joined Standard Chartered Securities (India) as chief executive in October 2019, and later went on to be the head of deposit products and client acquisition with Standard Chartered Bank, India, a role he held until his new appointment.