Jimmy Lee will join Julius Baer on 1 October 2015 to become Head Asia Pacific and a member of Bank Julius Baer’s Executive Board with effect from 1 January 2016. In the past 25 years, Jimmy Lee has had a proven track record in the private banking industry in Asia and thus brings a wealth of expertise to Julius Baer.
Having worked at Credit Suisse Group for a total of eleven years, Lee was most recently Market Group Head Hong Kong at Credit Suisse. Previously, he acted as Chief Executive Officer Asia of Clariden Leu from 2009 to 2012 and headed the integration of the bank into Credit Suisse in the Asia Pacific region in 2012/13. Prior to that, Jimmy Lee was Head Private Wealth Management Southeast Asia and South Asia at Deutsche Bank for five years and also held a number of other top management positions in the financial industry in Asia.
After successfully building up and leading Julius Baer’s business in Asia Pacific for ten years and managing the seamless integration of Merrill Lynch’s International Wealth Management business (IWM) into the Bank’s local operations, Dr Thomas R. Meier, current Region Head Asia Pacific, has expressed the wish to return to Switzerland to continue his career at the Group’s headquarters.
As of 1 January 2016, he will be non-executive Vice Chairman Wealth Management, reporting to Chief Executive Officer Boris F.J. Collardi. As part of this new role, he will take over various key tasks at the Group level.
Boris F.J. Collardi, Chief Executive Officer of Julius Baer, commented: “I am very pleased that we have been able to win Jimmy Lee and warmly welcome him to Julius Baer. With Jimmy’s vast experience and his extensive network, we will launch the next phase of growth and take our presence in Asia to the next level.”
Boris F.J. Collardi added: “In the past ten years, Tom Meier has led our operations in Asia Pacific from modest beginnings to being one of the major players in this most important growth market today. I would like to thank him for this truly extraordinary achievement. In his new role as non-executive Vice Chairman, we can continue to draw on Tom’s vast and valuable private banking knowledge.”
Today, Asia is Julius Baer’s second home market with nearly a quarter of the Group’s assets under management globally. After the successful integration of the IWM business in 2014, Julius Baer is now one of the leading international wealth managers in the region.
