HSBC continues poaching spree

Jul 8, 2003

Lawrence Webb adds more sales executives to his cash and payments team.

HSBC has lured three more salespeople from rival institutions as the Hong Kong bank continues to expand its cash management operation in the region. This month Ken Tashima from ABN AMRO, Irene Han from Standard Chartered and Kevin Gui from Citibank have joined the HSBC team.

The trio will report to Duncan Ashford who is currently running HSBC's cash business in China but will soon return to Hong Kong to head the regional corporate sales team under overall boss Lawrence Webb. Ashford has spent the last 18 months based in Shanghai.

"We have invested in a lot of new cash management products over the last two years and now is the time to complement our existing sales team with additional highly experienced and talented executives," says Webb. "We have been very selective in our recruitment process."

He says Ashford's China experience will be invaluable in his new role as head of corporate sales. "We are seeing an increasing number of multinational companies establishing their regional headquarters in China or otherwise incorporating their mainland operations into their regional cash management structures."

The three new hires will carry the title of Senior Corporate Sales Manager and each will be responsible for managing a team of salespeople covering both the domestic and regional cash management businesses.

Ken Tashima has the longest transactional banking track record. Twenty years with JPMorgan, Bankers Trust, Citibank and most recently at ABN AMRO where he was senior sales consultant for North Asia. His departure from the Dutch bank follows the resignation of Anthony Solimini last month, indicating that ABN AMRO is rumoured to be in the process of refocusing its cash management capabilities on China.

Irene Han has 14 years experience in cash management sales and has left Standard Chartered where she was responsible for transaction sales to the large corporate and institutional sector. Kevin Gui joins Webb's team from Citibank in Singapore. He has 10 years experience in the business and has also worked for Chase Manhattan and Standard Chartered.