A raft of Swiss pure-play private banks have made major Asia C-suite hires in late 2024.
Although the end of 2024 is approaching, Asia’s private wealth management industry remains active. Most notably, Swiss pure-play private banks – boutique wealth firms with no retail or investment banking businesses – have been in a hiring drive for C-suite talent.
In October, Pictet hired ex-BNP Paribas banker Alison Lim as its Singapore branch CEO. In the same month, EFG welcomed Urs Buchmann and Ashish Gumashta – former Hong Kong vice chair of Credit Suisse and CEO of Julius Baer India, respectively – to its Asia advisory board. In November, family-owned CBH announced the landmark appointment of industry veteran and J. Safra Sarasin’s ex-Asia chief, Enid Yip, as the CEO of its regional subsidiary.
And just two weeks before the end of the year, Indosuez Wealth Management’s Omar Shokur joined Lombard Odier as the Asia head for its private clients division.
Universal Banks: Internal Reshuffles
In contrast, the private wealth units of universal banks have either stabilized rosters or merely shifted staff for senior management positions.
UBS recently announced the relocation of global wealth management chief operating officer (COO) Wiwi Gutmannsbauer to Singapore as APAC COO. HSBC, which is reportedly in the midst of a $3 billion cost reduction exercise, named current head of wealth and personal banking for South and Southeast Asia, Kai Zhang, as head of international wealth and premier banking for Asia.
Talent Strategy
Overall, some universal banks continue to hire, especially for front office roles. For example, Standard Chartered is seeking to grow the number of relationship managers by 50 percent as part of its ambitions to attract $200 billion of net new money from affluent clients by 2029.
But for senior jobs, many are relying on their deep pool of internal talent or, in the case of HSBC, seeking to cut top managers in an overhaul to make the bank simpler and leaner.
