People moves: Manulife names new Singapore CEO

Manulife has appointed Khoo Kah Siang as chief executive officer for its Singapore business. He will join Manulife’s Asia executive committee and report directly to Manulife Asia chief executive Anil Wadhwani.

Khoo’s appointment is effective from February 9, subject to necessary regulatory approvals. He replaces Naveed Irshad who becomes Manulife’s head of the North America legacy business.

Prior to this appointment, Khoo spent 12 years at Great Eastern Singapore, most recently as head of strategic business development and regional bancassurance, where he was responsible for the expansion of the firm’s South-east Asia businesses.

UBS has named Winfried Gutmannsbauer as chief operating officer for its Asia-Pacific wealth management business starting from January 1. He will report to Dirk Klee, chief operating officer for UBS wealth management, Kathryn Shih, president of UBS Asia-Pacific, and Edmund Koh, head of UBS wealth management for Asia-Pacific.

Gutmannsbauer, who will relocate to Singapore from Zurich, replaces Geoffroy de Ridder and Andreas Neuber whose new positions have yet to be announced.

Gutmannsbauer is currently a member of the executive board of UBS Switzerland, joint chief operating officer for UBS Switzerland and operating head of the wealth management booking centre for Switzerland and emerging market locations.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has appointed Tan Yeow Seng as chief cyber security officer, a new role created by the regulator. Tan, who assumed the position on December 1, is responsible for setting cyber resiliency standards and overseeing their implementation. He holds the appointment concurrently with his role as executive director of the technology risk and payments department at the MAS.

Private banking group Julius Baer has appointed Chew Mun-Yew as market head of Taiwan and group head of Greater China. He reports to David Schick, head of private banking for Greater China. The position is based in Singapore

Chew was most recently head of Taiwan for UBS’s wealth management arm, before which he was chief risk manager overseeing the South-east Asia and Asia-Pacific regions. He also previously worked for the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a senior banking and insurance regulator for more than five years.

ANZ has announced that its chief risk officer Nigel Williams will step down at the end of March next year. Williams joined ANZ following the 2004 acquisition of the National Bank of New Zealand.

During his time at ANZ, Williams held a number of leadership positions including managing director of institutional, corporate and commercial banking in New Zealand and managing director of institutional banking in Australia.

ANZ will announce Williams’ successor as chief risk officer in early 2018.

Standard Chartered has hired Jimmy Chang as head of wealth markets products and sales, based in Hong Kong. He reports to Alex Welch, global head of wealth markets products, sales and managed investments, and Stephen Man, head of wealth management.

Prior to this, Chang was head of retail and private wealth management at Huatai Financial Holdings. He previously held senior roles at UBS, ABN Amro and Citibank.

RBC Investor & Treasury Services, a unit of the Royal Bank of Canada, has appointed Marian Azer as head of product management for Asia-Pacific and chief operating officer for global client coverage in Australia. She will report to David Travers, head of RBC Investor & Treasury Services Australia, and Paul Stillabower, global head of product management.

Azer will be responsible for the design and execution of the company’s product strategy in the Asia-Pacific region alongside governance for all client coverage activities in Australia. Azer was most recently head of product in the investor services department at JP Morgan for the past five years. Prior to that, she held senior roles at Mercer and BNP Paribas.

Julien Kasparian has been promoted to head of BNP Paribas Securities Services in Hong Kong. He joins from the group’s London office where he was most recently head of sales and global relationship management for UK banks and brokers. Kasparian replaces Stéphanie Marelle, who has relocated to Paris to take up a new role as global head of compliance for securities services.

Kasparian previously spent seven years between Paris and London leading the development of back-office outsourcing, clearing and settlement solutions for BNP Paribas Securities Services.

In addition, the bank has hired Simone Broadfield as head of agency lending for Asia-Pacific, a newly created role. She joins from Citi where she was most recently the head of the Hong Kong trading desk for the bank’s agency securities lending programme. Broadfield will focus on expanding BNP Paribas’ agency lending franchise in the Asia-Pacific region.

National Bank of Australia has made several changes to its executive leadership team. Anthony Healy becomes CEO of business and private banking. Healy was previously CEO of Bank of New Zealand, a wholly owned subsidiary of NAB. Prior to this, he led BNZ’s business arm for more than four years since joining the bank in 2009.

Angela Mentis, who previously served as NAB’s chief customer officer for business and private banking, replaces Healy as BNZ CEO. She has been leading NAB’s business banking division since 2014. The two appointments are effective from January 1, subject to regulatory approval.