Geir Espeskog has been appointed as iShares head of distribution in Asia-Pacific, Jason Miller has been made head of iShares Japan; Jonathan Howie has been named as head of iShares Australia and Sean Cunningham as head of iShares Capital Markets for Asia Pacific.

In his new role, from 1 January, 2015, Geir will be based in Hong Kong, reporting to Susan Chan, after serving as head of iShares for the Nordics. As Asia-Pacific head of Distribution, Geir is responsible for each region in Asia Pacific and across all channels, including retail, institutional and asset management.

Jason Miller, will take up the new role of head of iShares Japan effective 1 January, and joins from New York where he was head of broker-dealer relationship management within the Americas iShares capital markets team. He will report to Masato Degawa, president of BlackRock Japan and to Susan Chan, head of iShares Asia-Pacific. “His appointment signifies the importance of the Japanese iShares business, both through its rapidly-growing onshore platform along with offshore global exposures offered to domestic institutional investors,” the firm said in a statement.

Jonathan Howie took on the role of head of iShares Australia on 5 November, 2014, after serving the business there as head of ETF product and strategy for iShares. He will report to Justin Arter, head of BlackRock Australia and Susan Chan.

Sean Cunningham will take up the role of head of iShares Capital Markets for the Asia-Pacific region, effective 1 January. He joins from London where he was head of broker-dealer execution services EMEA, and will report to Susan Chan, based in Hong Kong.

“These appointments signify the importance of iShares in Asia Pacific to BlackRock. The new leaders will help us drive further adoption of ETFs as core investments, precision exposures and financial instruments along with strengthening our global connectivity,” Chan said.

At 30 September, 2014, BlackRock’s assets under management stood at $4.525 trillion.