Large Chinese banks have traditionally grown their own talent and found it difficult to lure senior bankers away from US and European institutions. But this is now changing, at least in Hong Kong, as global banks continue to trim their senior Asian ranks.
Bank of China International (BOCI) in Hong Kong is a case in point. We looked through senior online public profiles of BOCI staff in Hong Kong and found numerous employees hired from major Western banks.
Here’s a selection of high-profile BOCI managers who worked at foreign firms earlier in their careers.
Raymond Yin, managing director, head of East China
Yin, who has been in his post since 2015, has a long work history at global banks. After starting out at Schroders in 1996, he worked for Citi for six years, latterly as a director in China investment banking, according to his public profile. He then headed up China industrials at J.P. Morgan, before joining RBS in 2009 as co-head of China investment banking. Prior to BOCI, Yin spent almost four years at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong as chairman of China and head of China investment banking.
Wei Wang, managing director, deputy head of research
Wang was promoted to his current job in May, having previously run fixed income research at BOCI. His first banking job, as a fixed income analyst for Merrill Lynch in New York, was in 1998. He joined Salomon Brothers (now part of Citi) just over a year later and worked there until 2008 in Hong Kong and on Wall Street. Wang combines his BOCI job with being an adjunct senior researcher at Renmin University of China and an adjunct professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Raymond Leung, managing director, executive head of investment banking division
Leung is somewhat of a trendsetter, having joined BOCI back in 2005. Previously a VP at BNP Paribas, the status of Leung’s current position suggests his move away from a foreign bank has paid off. His career began at HSBC in 1992 and he moved to UBS in 1997 for a four-year stint in its investment bank, according to his online profile.
Sebastian Ha, head of debt syndicate
Bank of China doesn’t just recruit from the Hong Kong offices of global banks. Australian Ha had never been based in Asia until he joined the bank in 2013 from Citi in Sydney, where he had worked for three years as a treasury consultant. He spent 2007 to 2009 at ANZ in Sydney.
Roger Teow, regional market head, mainland China and Southeast Asia, wealth management
Bank of China has also hired elite private bankers from Western firms. Teow, who joined last year, previously worked for UBS in Hong Kong for eight years, latterly as Greater China head for ultra-high net worth clients. He was head of the investment advisory group, Malaysia desk, at HSBC in Singapore from 2003 to 2005, before moving to Malaysia’s AmInvestment Bank to run investments and product advisory.
Philip Chung, director, equity derivatives structuring
Chung worked for HSBC after graduating and then joined Bank of America in 2003 as an assistant vice president in global FX strategy. Prior to joining BOCI last year he was a director, equity derivatives structuring and trading, at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong, according to his profile.
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