Asia moves: BIS appoints new chair for Asia council, VP Bank expands Asia leadership, and more

Perry Warjiyo, governor of the Bank of Indonesia since 2018, has been appointed as chair of the Bank for International Settlements Asian Consultative Council, for a two-year term.

Warjiyo replaces Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in this position. Menon has chaired the ACC since September 2019.

The Hong Kong virtual bank Mox Bank has named Barbaros Uygun as its chief executive officer and executive director of the board.

Barbaros succeeds Deniz Güven, who has been appointed special adviser to Standard Chartered on a number of important digital initiatives.

Prior to joining Mox Bank, Barbaros was the CEO of ING Bank Austria. Barbaros has also held other leadership positions at ING Bank and Garanti Bank.

Liechtenstein’s VP Bank continues to expand its Asia leadership team. The bank has named Alexander Tsikouras as chief financial officer (CFO) and chief operating officer (COO) for Asia, and Will Wang as head of client solutions and strategic partnerships for Asia.

These two newly created roles are part of their Asia management committee. These appointments follow the recent joining of two other senior executives, Pamela Hsu Phua as CEO Asia and Heline Lam as chief of staff Asia.

Joining from Pictet, where he was chief of staff Asia, Tsikouras will be based in Singapore. He will be responsible for driving the bank’s strategic financial and operational efficiency, as well as transformation in Asia.  He will report regionally to Asia CEO Pamela Hsu Phua, and functionally to both group CFO Roger Barmettler and group COO Urs Monstein.

Wang will be based in Hong Kong. He will report functionally to both Asia CEO Pamela Hsu Phua and group head of client solutions Thomas von Hohenhau.

Prior to joining VP Bank, Wang was managing director and head of investment committee at a Hong Kong SFC regulated asset manager.

Monroe Capital has also expanded its platform to Asia with the appointment of Alex Kim as managing director and head of Asia. Prior to Monroe, Kim was the CEO and managing director of Korea and head of South-east Asia institutions at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation, has appointed Kathleen Gallagher as head of Standard & Poor’s depositary receipt (SPDR) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Australia. She will assume the new position in addition to her current role as head of ETF model portfolios for Asia.

The firm has also appointed Robin Tsui as Asia-Pacific gold strategist and gold sales specialist for Hong Kong, in addition to his role as Asia-Pacific gold strategist. Prior to joining State Street Global Advisors in 2016, Tsui was investment product and research manager at the World Gold Council.

In his new role, Tsui will lead the sales strategies for SPDR Gold ETFs in Hong Kong in addition to his gold strategist role, which focuses on gold investment strategy and research.

The firm has also created two new roles for its fixed-income business, hiring Marie Tsang as SPDR fixed-income strategist for Asia-Pacific and Jean Gan as SPDR fixed-income sales specialist for Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

Tsang and Gan will be based in Sydney and Singapore respectively.

Tsang joins State Street Global Advisors from BlackRock, where she was most recently the senior investment strategist for portfolio analysis and solutions. Gan joins from MUFG Securities, where she was most recently director for institutional investor sales.

All four roles report to Meaghan Victor, head of SPDR ETFs Asia-Pacific distribution. Victor is based in Sydney.

First Sentier Investors and MUFG have appointed Velina Karadzhova to lead the firm’s recently-launched Sustainable Investment Institute. Karadzhova was previously an ESG analyst and utilities sector lead at MSCI.

Nuveen, the investment manager of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, has appointed Gracee Teo as vice-president and head of South-east Asia Institutional in Asia.

Based in Singapore, Teo will be responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with institutional clients across South-east Asia. She reports to Simon England-Brammer, senior managing director and head of Asia-Pacific and Middle East, global client group, who is based in Hong Kong.

Financial services firm Mazars has named Rupert Utley as a partner and head of forensic and investigation services. Utley started the new role on October 4, 2021.

Before joining Mazars, Utley established his own advisory firm, prior to which he worked with several professional services firms in Hong Kong, China, Singapore and London.

Citi has hired two seasoned treasury executives from JP Morgan and Citadel, as the bank works to integrate its cash equity, derivatives, prime services and clearing businesses amid an ongoing restructuring – one designed to help the bank meet its stated aim of becoming a top-tier equities house.

Dheeraj Daswani, a veteran executive at JP Morgan and currently head of treasury for over-the-counter clearing and futures and options for the Americas, has joined Citi as its regional product head for equities in Asia. He is currently based in New York, but will move to Singapore for the new role, according to two sources.

Daswani has worked at JP Morgan since 2005, and has been in senior clearing treasury roles since 2013.

Citi has also hired Timothy Tomalin-Reeves, a treasurer at Citadel in London, to head up a new financial resource management function within the enlarged equities division under Fater Belbachir. Tomalin-Reeves joined Citadel in 2016 from Goldman Sachs, where he worked as a managing director in the prime brokerage business, in charge of capital utilisation.