Asia moves: StanChart’s China head, new chief for Bank of China HK

Standard Chartered has appointed Andrew Au as regional head of global banking for Greater China and North Asia. Based in Hong Kong, he will report to Paul Skelton, global head of global banking. His appointment is effective on January 29.

Au most recently assumed the role of chief executive officer for Citi’s China business out of Shanghai. Prior to that, he was regional head of commercial banking for Citi’s Asia-Pacific operations. 

Au, who is from Hong Kong, has worked for more than three decades in the industry, spanning coverage, product, risk, and country and regional management. 

Bank of China (Hong Kong) has promoted Yingxin Gao to chief executive officer and vice-chairman, effective on January 1. Previously, he was a non-executive director and a member of the risk committee at the bank. 

Gao has spent the majority of his three-decades-long career at Bank of China since joining its Beijing office in 1986. He served as deputy chief executive for corporate banking between 2005 and 2015. 

Consequently, Gao was also appointed chairman of Hong Kong Clearing Limited, as well as a new member of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s risk management committee.

BlackRock has appointed Deborah Ho as head of South-east Asia. Ho, who will take up her new position in March, joins from Barclays Bank, where she has been co-head of senior relationship management in Asia-Pacific since 2012. Prior to that, Ho led DBS Asset Management in Singapore between 2007 and 2011. She also had stints as head of fixed-income distribution for Asia ex-Japan at both UBS and JP Morgan.

Societe Generale has promoted Yann Garnier to head of sales for global markets. He will leave his role as head of global markets for Asia-Pacific and relocate to Paris in the coming months.

He spent eight years posted in Hong Kong, initially in a senior role in derivatives and structured product sales for Asia-Pacific at SocGen. Garnier added a fixed-income and currencies sales remit in 2011, before becoming deputy head of global markets for Asia-Pacific in 2015. He initially joined SocGen in 1998. 

In his new position, Garnier will report to Frank Drouet, head of global markets, who had supervised the global markets sales activity for six months until the beginning of this year. 

Jerome Niddam, previously head of financial engineering for Asia-Pacific at SocGen, takes over Garnier’s old post, subject to regulatory approval. Based in Hong Kong, he will report to Hikaru Ogata, chief executive officer of Societe Generale in Asia-Pacific, and to Drouet. 

State Street’s asset management arm, State Street Global Advisors, has appointed Betty Ng to the newly created position of chief operating officer for Asia ex-Japan, supporting the implementation of strategic and growth initiatives across the region. 

Ng joins from Agricultural Bank of China, where she was general manager for private wealth management in Hong Kong. Previously, she spent seven years at Standard Chartered Bank in a variety of roles, including chief operating officer for private banking. Ng has also worked at Citibank and Jardine Fleming.

Zoher Karu has joined Citi as head of Asia-Pacific data and analytics. He relocates to Singapore from San Francisco, where his previous position was chief data officer at online auction site eBay. 

Karu’s newly created position entails overseeing Citi’s data and analytics systems within the consumer banking business in Asia-Pacific. He reports to Anand Selva, head of Asia-Pacific consumer banking. 

Prior to eBay, Karu was vice-president of marketing analytics and insight at Sears Holdings. He has also held positions at companies looking into customer insights from voice conversations or through studying habits and preferences in physical stores.

London Stock Exchange-owned index provider FTSE Russell has hired Seiji Ishii as managing director in Japan. Ishii joined the vendor on January 1, with responsibility for managing client relationships and leading business development in the country. He will also lead local integration between FTSE Russell and its acquisitions of Citi’s Bond Index/Yield Book team and company data provider Mergent from Moody’s.

Prior to joining FTSE Russell, Ishii spent three years at Acadian Asset Management as managing director and the firm’s representative in Japan. 

Hong Kong-based dispute resolution and litigation specialist law firm Gall has appointed two new partners and three lawyers. Evelyn Chan rejoined the firm as a partner in November 2017. Nick Dealy joined as a partner in January, from UBS, where he held various roles in London and Hong Kong. The firm added Roy Yu in November 2017 as a registered foreign lawyer, and he is also an employment and regulatory lawyer. Wilson Cheung joined as a paralegal in the same month. Catherine Tso joined the family and divorce practice as an associate in January.