Asia moves: Crédit Agricole appoints Hong Kong CEO, UBS sales head joins Morgan Stanley, and more

Latest job news across the industry

Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) has appointed Edouard O’Neill as chief executive officer for the Hong Kong branch and head of structured finance for Asia. 

Based in Hong Kong, he will report jointly to Michel Roy, senior regional officer for Asia-Pacific (Apac), and Jacques de Villaines, global head of structured finance. 

O’Neill will lead the overall business development and strategy of the bank’s commercial franchise in Hong Kong and further develop the bank’s structured finance activities in Asia. 

O’Neill joined Crédit Agricole CIB in 2015 as a managing director for corporate acquisition finance. He has been global head of acquisition finance advisory since 2019.

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UBS’s Asia-Pacific structured sales head, Bilal Al-Ali, has left the Swiss bank and is set join Morgan Stanley. He will be head of Morgan Stanley’s structured sales team in the Apac region. 

Al-Ali joined UBS in 2009 as head of quantitative research and subsequently held a number of senior positions within UBS’s regional structuring team. He will join Morgan Stanley in the coming months after he finishes gardening leave.

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Citi has named Alex Schrantz as head of banking, capital markets and advisory (BCMA) for Hong Kong while retaining his existing role as Apac head of corporate finance. 

Schrantz will report jointly to Jan Metzger, Apac head of BCMA, and Angel Ng, chief executive of Hong Kong and Macau. 

Schrantz joined Citi in 2012 and was responsible for overseeing all of Citi’s capital markets execution in the Asia-Pacific region. He previously served as a member of the listing committee of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from 2006 to 2010. 

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HSBC has made some new appointments to its wealth and personal banking business in Singapore. Ian Yim has been named as head of distribution of the division, whilst Melissa Craig becomes head of digital and innovation. Both will report to Anurag Mathur, head of wealth and personal banking. 

Yim has been at the bank for over 18 years. Since 2019, he has served as head of wealth and international, and he has been acting head of distribution since 2021. He will be responsible for all staff-assisted sales and service channels. 

Craig has more than 18 years of global digital banking and e-commerce experience, having served in leadership roles at Zuji and Lazada in Singapore. She is currently head of digital messaging experiences and sales for HSBC International.

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In line with its expansion plan in Asia, Axa IM has made two senior appointments. Carmen Lai joins as the head of institution sales for Asia, whilst Kyle Wang, has been appointed as head of sovereign and supranational entities. 

Both will be based in Hong Kong, and will report to the head of client group core, Asia-Pacific, Terence Lam. Lai will oversee the development of Axa IM’s institutional business and client relationship in Asia, spearheading the firm’s sales strategy within this client segment. 

Lai joins Axa IM from Pictet Asset Management, where she has led the business development efforts in the Asia ex-Japan institutional client segment. 

Wang has been at Axa since 2016, and was previously head of institutional sales. She has also worked at BlackRock, HSBC and Cathay United Bank.

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UOB has appointed Eric Lim as its chief sustainability officer. Lim will join UOB’s management committee and will report directly to deputy chairman and chief executive officer, Wee Ee Cheong. He will be the chairperson of the bank’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) committee and will oversee risks, opportunities and progress of ESG-related initiatives. 

Lim is currently the bank’s head of finance. He will take on the new role in addition to the existing one. 

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PineBridge Investments has appointed Kate Faraday as global head of corporate responsibility. Faraday will report directly to the firm’s CEO Greg Ehret. She will oversee PineBridge’s corporate responsibility strategy and execution of key initiatives and development on ESG principles into PineBridge’s investment process. 

Faraday joined PineBridge in 2007 and was most recently head of client portfolio management for America’s equities and portfolio manager for the research enhanced quantitative equities strategies. 

Previously, she was a global equity trader responsible for trading domestic, global and emerging market portfolios at PineBridge.

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Singapore fund management company, Phillip Capital, has appointed Stephen Beng Sui-Leung as the company’s first head of ESG strategy amid the growth of ESG investment in the region. 

He will lead ESG integration at group and firm level and will be responsible for deploying ESG framework towards group’s commitments and for their investment portfolio. 

Beng was an independent consultant before he took on this role.