People moves: StanChart shuffles senior execs in Asia

Also: Ramachandran’s permanent role at Westpac; UOB hires in structured finance; SSGA adds Yung for strategy; and others

Standard Chartered has made a number of leadership changes in Asia. Ben Hung, regional chief executive for Greater China and North Asia, will take on the additional role of chief executive for retail banking on November 30. Hung replaces Karen Fawcett, who is to retire. Hung will lead the development and implementation of strategy and ongoing product and technology projects across retail banking in Asia. 

Judy Tsu

Judy Hsu, currently Standard Chartered’s chief executive for Singapore, will become regional chief executive for Asia and South-east Asia by the fourth quarter of 2018. Hsu takes over from Anna Marrs, who also holds the title of chief executive for commercial and private banking and wealth management – a position she will retain. 

Hsu will also take on responsibility for Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and join the group management team. She will continue reporting to Marrs for her regional role, and will also report to Bill Winters, group chief executive, for her management team role. 

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Westpac has appointed Ananth Ramachandran as head of corporate and institutional banking for Asia. He had already been working in this position on an interim basis. Prior to this role he was head of financial institutions, public sector and healthcare at the bank. Before joining Westpac in Singapore he worked for Standard Chartered as managing director for financial institutions strategic client coverage in South-east Asia. 

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UOB has hired Alvin Wong to join its global financial institutions group in Singapore as a director in structured finance. Prior to joining UOB Wong spent 10 years at DBS, first in the bank’s structured products and derivatives sales team before joining the structured debt solutions desk. Previously he worked for Standard Chartered in Singapore. 

In his new role Wong will report to former DBS colleague Simon Tan, who moved across to UOB earlier this year and now works as head of structured finance. 

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Former global head of conduct and supervision for the corporate and investment banking division at Deutsche Bank, Toby Billington, has joined HSBC as global banking chief control officer. Billington will be responsible for the division’s end-to-end risk and control environment for non-financial risk. 

Prior to his current focus on conduct and controls, Billington was a banking lawyer working for several institutions over the past 20 years including Barclays, Bayerische Landesbank, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, Silicon Valley Bank and Gulf International Bank.

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Johnnie Yung has joined State Street Global Advisors as head of portfolio strategists for Asia ex-Japan, based in Hong Kong. Yung is responsible for developing portfolio recommendations, and presenting SSGA investment strategies and solutions to institutional investors in the Asia ex-Japan region. Yung reports to Jonathan Shead, head of portfolio strategists for Asia-Pacific, who is based in Australia.

Yung was previously head of beta strategies portfolio management for Asia ex-Japan at BlackRock, where he led a team of portfolio managers. Before joining BlackRock, Yung worked for Dacheng Fund Management Company, Royal Bank of Scotland and DBS.

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Mark Keenan

Societe Generale has made a number of changes to its cross-asset research team. Mark Keenan has been appointed head of research for Asia-Pacific in addition to his role at the bank as global commodities strategist. Based in Singapore, Keenan will report to Brigitte Richard-Hidden, global head of research, and to Yann Garnier, head of global markets in Asia-Pacific. He will also continue to report to Michael Haigh, head of commodities research. 

In addition, Klaus Baader becomes global chief economist, replacing Michala Marcussen who was promoted to group chief economist. Based in London, Baader will lead a team of cross-asset research economists, and will report to Richard-Hidden.

The bank’s China economist Wei Yao has taken on an extra role as lead economist for Asia-Pacific. Based in Paris, Wei will report to Baader.

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The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has promoted Howard Lee to the position of deputy chief executive. The authority has also reshuffled several senior management posts. Lee took on most of the duties of the previous deputy chief executive, Peter Pang, namely for financial infrastructure and monetary management, when Pang retired in February 2016. However, he was promoted to senior executive director, a notch below the deputy grade. As of January 1, he will be a full deputy chief executive. 

Lee has worked with the HKMA since 2009, when he joined as division head of banking policy. He was made executive director for corporate services in 2010 and then for monetary management in 2013. 

The HKMA has also named Alan Au its new executive director for banking conduct. Au replaces Carmen Chu, who has taken over the enforcement and anti-money-laundering portfolio on the retirement of the current director.

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The Asian Development Bank has appointed Indu Bhushan as the new director-general of its East Asia department, which includes responsibility for the bank’s work in China. Bhushan will also oversee ADB’s work in Hong Kong, Mongolia, South Korea and Taiwan. He will be in charge of a $12.6 billion portfolio. 

Before taking up the role, Bhushan was director-general of the ADB’s strategy and policy department. He has served with the bank since 1997. Bhushan replaces Ayumi Konishi, who had led the East Asia department since 2013 and is currently serving as a senior special adviser to the ADB’s president.