StanChart appoints global head of managed investments

Standard Chartered Bank has made changes at a senior level to its wealth management business, appointing Andrew Chia as global head of managed investments, effective July 1.

Chia takes over the role from Alexis Calla who has worn two hats since 2013, as global head of managed investments and global head of investment advisory and strategy within the group. Calla retains the latter role.

“Both areas are key to the bank and over the last two years we have seen strong growth," said Judy Hsu, Standard Chartered's global head of wealth management. "Under Alexis’s leadership, we have made tremendous progress in the distribution of mutual funds.

“To ensure we are able to further capitalise on these opportunities, we have decided to appoint Andrew as the global head of managed investments, while allowing Alexis to continue to focus on the investment, advisory and strategy portfolios.  We now have two senior executives overseeing these key areas."

Chia has been with Standard Chartered since 2010. He was most recently head of retail banking in Taiwan. His replacement in Taiwan will be announced at a later time.  Chia was also previously head of wealth management for Singapore and Southeast Asia.  He reports to Judy Hsu and will become a member of the wealth management leadership team.

In his current role, he oversees fund selection for both the bank's private banking and retail platforms. Reporting to him are Dany Dupasquier, head of group funds, and Stanley Sia, head of real estate and private equity. 

The bank has also appointed Sumeet Bhambri as regional head of wealth management for ASEAN, replacing Chung Shaw Bee. Bhambri was previously regional head of wealth management for MENAP and Europe.

Chung, who held the role at StanChart from December 2013 until last week, is joining UOB as global head of wealth management, according to an industry source.  UOB declined to confirm this.

Standard Chartered has also appointed Alvin Chan as head of rates and FX, wealth markets products and sales.  His mandate is to drive the development of FX as an integral asset class for the bank's wealth management clients. He started officially on 25 June. Based in Singapore, he reports to Lee Guan Liu, global head, wealth markets products and aales.

Chan joined from Julius Baer in Hong Kong, where he was both the  head of FX sales and advisory for Asia and the head for the bank’s markets division’s operations in Hong Kong.  Prior to Julius Baer, he spent 7 years with Merrill Lynch, where he led the sales teams and built the FX product platform and advisory business for Merrill’s Private Wealth Management business in Asia Pacific.