Asia moves: Trio of senior hires at Wells Fargo and Haitong International, and more

Wells Fargo has made three senior appointments to its Asia-Pacific foreign exchange trading and sales team. Romano Kwok has been appointed senior FX product manager for Apac, Weeli Goh will become the bank’s new head of FX trading Asia, while Yash Biswas becomes head of FX sales, Asia.

Kwok, who is based in Hong Kong, has held several leadership roles in Wells Fargo’s FX trading franchise, serving as Hong Kong head of FX trading and most recently as the interim head of FX sales and trading, Apac. He will continue his regulatory supervision of FX activities in Hong Kong, and be a key member of the bank’s senior leadership team charged with growing its global FX franchise and regional presence.

Goh joins Wells Fargo from TD Securities, where he spent more than five years and last served as the firm’s head of FX Trading for the Asia region. Prior to his spell at TD Securities, Goh held a variety of FX-related trading roles across the G10 and emerging markets spot, forward and option desks of Credit Suisse, Westpac and National Australia Bank.

With more than 14 years’ experience, Biswas joins from Natwest Markets where he held a number of roles across macro sales and cross-asset structuring functions, most recently as head of currencies sales, Apac.

Kwok, Goh and Biswas will each report to Mandy Wan, Wells Fargo’s head of markets, Apac, in Singapore.

Barclays has made two senior appointments in its investment banking franchise in Australia. Duncan Beattie and Duncan Connellan have been appointed as managing directors of investment banking in Australia.

Both Beattie and Connellan will be based in Sydney and will report to Richard Satchwell, the bank’s country chief executive officer and head of investment banking, Australia.

Citi has appointed Stella Choe as the bank’s new head of the global subsidiaries group (GSG) for Asia-Pacific, replacing Munir Nanji, who has moved to a new role has head of the bank’s Central Europe cluster and country officer for the Czech Republic.

Choe will report to Marc Merlino, Citi’s global head of GSG based in New York, and Kaleem Rizvi, Asia-Pacific head of corporate banking.

In a note to GSG employees, Merlino and Rizvi stated that Choe brings a wealth of experience to the role, most recently in her position as Citi’s head of corporate banking for Australia and New Zealand. Choe joined Citi in 2014 as head of the financial institutions group, corporate banking, Australia and New Zealand.

Before joining Citi, Choe spent six years at HSBC Hong Kong working in regional acquisition finance and funds coverage and, prior to that role, she headed up Morgan Stanley’s EMEA leveraged and acquisition finance syndication division in London.

Choe will also join the bank’s GSG global executive committee and relocate to Singapore from Australia in due course.

Haitong International has made three senior appointments within its institutional client business segment. Karen Jin will become
managing director of fixed income sales and trading. Scott Darling will be joining the bank’s global energy research team as managing director of equity research.

Pingzi Ji has also been appointed managing director of equity research, a role in which she will be responsible for bridging Haitong International’s China and Japan research teams.

Darling has more than 16 years’ equity research experience in the energy sector. Prior to joining Haitong International, he was most recently head of Asia-Pacific energy equity research at JP Morgan.

Ji has over 20 years of experience in equity research and investment at both buy-side and sell-side firms. Before joining Haitong International, she was most recently executive director of senior consumer specialty sales at SMBC Nikko Securities (Hong Kong), where she was responsible for research on Japanese and Chinese equity markets, with a focus on the Apac consumer sector.

Jin brings more than 16 years of experience to the role, most recently as director of China fixed income, currencies and commodities sales at Bank of America, where she was responsible for client relationship management and business development. She will be responsible for building and expanding the group’s institutional client base, business development and relationship management, and supporting sales and marketing strategy and product development.

HSBC Asset Management has appointed Marco Montanari as global capability head, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and indexing. Based in Hong Kong, Marco reports to Guillaume Rabault, chief investment officer, quant equities.

In the newly created role, Montanari will work closely with the firm’s sales and investment teams to define and build a coherent product and service offering that reflects the strategic importance of passive investing to HSBC AM amidst a rapidly expanding market.

Montanari joins from DWS in Hong Kong, where he oversaw product structuring for the Apac region and participated in the firm’s regional strategic management.

Before that, he held the role of head of passive asset management at DWS for 10 years following his move from London, where he was head of fixed income ETF structuring at Deutsche Bank.