Finance execs to showcase their musical heavy mettle
Asia’s proverbial financial rock stars will have a chance to prove their mettle – including the heavy metal variety – onstage at the inaugural Finance Live event in Hong Kong next month.
The charity event will see finance executives take the stage on November 21 to show that deep knowledge of both stocks and rock are not incompatible.
Organised by Steve Bernstein, a veteran of both the finance and music sectors, the event is aimed at combining finance, music and charity.
“If I can combine all three to make the world a more fun and better place, then it’s a home run,” says Bernstein, chief executive of SinoPac Solutions and Services and man-with-the-mandolin about town.
The identities of individual musicians are largely being kept under wraps until the night of the event, although they will include closet rockers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Barclays, UBS, Nomura and Wells Fargo.
Nomura’s musical contribution to the evening will be a performance by Jellyfish, a four-piece band that is entirely comprised by staff from the Japanese bank.
Bassist Mark Bennett describes Jellyfish as an “indie-folk rock band with a twist of electronica”. He also divulged the clever origin of the band’s name: it originates from the fact that Nomura shares its name with a type of jellyfish in Japan.
Meanwhile, we have heard it through the grapevine that Alex Majoni, the chief operating officer for InvestOrbit and former bassist for now-defunct girl magnet band Tai Tai Alibi – as well as the adroitly-named and fully-clothed group Go Commando – plans to take the stage.
Bernstein, along with Jim Olsson of Barclays prime services, had previously united financial minstrels for a Japan disaster relief concert in 2011, which raised more than $350,000.
Aside from raising money for charity, Finance Live is intended to be a welcome source of peer-provided entertainment for the financial community, which has spent much of this year navigating markets that have gyrated like baby boomers at a Beach Boys reunion concert.
Similar charitable events are held annually in major financial centres, such as New York’s Wall Street Rocks and Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest gigs, and Sydney’s Hedge Funds Rock.
There has been keen interest in the Finance Live event by musicians, sponsors and live music fans, says Bernstein, who hopes to hold the event on a regular basis.