Fidelity hires BNY Mellon’s Chen as China head

Jun 20, 2011

The firm has handed responsibility for pursuing China business opportunities to Larry Chen, a BNY Mellon veteran who comes in to fill the hole left by Zhan Long.

Fidelity International has announced the appointment of Larry (Qing) Chen from Bank of New York Mellon as its new head of China.

Starting in Hong Kong next month, he comes in to fill a role that was previously occupied by Zhan Long, who quit as managing director last year to join Bank of Communications Schroder Fund Management in Shanghai.

A spokeswoman for Fidelity said last November that Zhan wanted to move back to mainland China with his family and added that an announcement would be made “soon”.

Chen will now be responsible for identifying and pursuing new business opportunities for Fidelity in China. He will report to Mark Talbot, Fidelity’s managing director of Asia ex-Japan.

Arne Lindman, Asia-Pacific CEO for Fidelity International, was travelling and unable to respond to questions at press time.

In a statement, he says: “The addition of an individual of Larry’s talent and proven track record of developing new businesses and building relationships in China complements the experience and network we have already established and will allow us to pursue our ambitious longer term plans to capture a meaningful share of the opportunities that China has to offer.”

Chen is being replaced at BNY Mellon by veteran Caleb Shih as general manager of its Beijing branch, subject to regulatory approval.

Chen had spent 17 years at Bank of New York Mellon, most recently as China country executive and general manager for the bank’s Beijing office, where he led over 100 staff in business development, client management and operations.

According to the statement, he also developed good relationships for the bank with sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, corporations and government agencies in China.

Prior to this role, Chen also worked in the bank’s New York and Hong Kong offices as relationship manager and vice-president for American Depositary Receipts, respectively.

Fidelity Investments Group had $1.5 trillion in assets under management globally as at the end of last year, of which $140.8 billion was sourced from Asia-Pacific, by AsianInvestor numbers.