Weekly roundup of people news, Sept 22
ONTARIO TEACHERS' CONFIRMS NEW RO FOR HONG KONG OFFICE
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has confirmed that Cindy Yan has taken on the expanded role of responsible officer as part of its Asia-Pacific leadership team.
Cindy Yan currently leads the direct and co-investment activities and portfolio management for Ontario Teachers' in Asia Pacific. She is based in the Ontario Teachers' Hong Kong office.
"We can confirm that Cindy Yan has assumed expanded responsibilities with respect to our private capital team in Asia Pacific, including becoming a responsible officer of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (Asia) Limited,” a spokesperson for the fund told AsianInvestor.
Yan has over two decades of combined experience in private equity, management consulting and corporate operations and general management.
Prior to joining Ontario Teachers, she was a partner with Advantage Partners, an Asia focused mid-cap buyout firm, where she led various buyout and late-stage growth investments in Greater China and Southeast Asia and Pan Asia cross-border value creation for the portfolio companies.
Prior to that, Yan worked at Boston Consulting Group and the 999 Group.
AUSTRALIAN RETIREMENT TRUST DEPUTY CIO STEPS DOWN
Australian Retirement Trust's (ART) deputy chief investment officer (CIO) Charles Woodhouse will leave the super fund at the end of the month to take up a new opportunity.
Woodhouse has been the deputy chief investment officer at the $167 billion (A$260 billion) super fund since its establishment in February 2022.
Prior to this role, he held the position of CIO at QSuper for a little over two years. Woodhouse initially joined the super fund in 2009 as the head of funds management and was later promoted to the role of CIO. During the merger of QSuper with Sunsuper, he also acted as the fund's interim chief executive.
According to a statement from ART, Woodhouse has resigned from his position to pursue another opportunity. However, no details have been provided regarding his next destination.
The investment team at ART now consists of CIO Ian Patrick, Andrew Fisher as the head of investment strategy, Herbert Chang as the head of capital markets, Nicole Bradford as the head of sustainable investment, Michael Weaver as the head of global real assets, Elizabeth Kumaru as the head of private corporate assets and Greg Barnes as the head of public markets.
SCHRODERS CAPITAL EXPANDS PE TEAM
Schroders Capital has expanded its private equity capabilities in Asia by appointing Ankita Baheti as investment director for private equity. Based in Singapore, Baheti will focus on the secondaries market.
She will work closely with Singapore-based David Bajada, investment director for private equity and the wider Asian private equity team based across Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore and Zurich.
She reports to Christiaan Van Der Kam, head of secondary investments, private equity, Schroders Capital.
Baheti was previously vice president at TPG NewQuest in Mumbai, where she was involved in evaluating and transacting several Indian secondary investments.
TPG NewQuest did not respond to an enquiry from AsianInvestor about who succeeded Baheti at the firm at the time of publication.
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK APPOINTS VP FOR EAST, SE ASIA
The Asian Development Bank appointed Scott Morris as vice president (East and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific) for a three-year term.
He will be responsible for the management of the operations of ADB’s East Asia, Southeast Asia and Pacific departments.
Morris is an expert on development finance and debt policy with more than 25 years of experience in international economic policymaking and research.
He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, where he has been director of the US development policy program and co-director of the sustainable development finance program.
Morris succeeds Ahmed M. Saeed, who has now taken over the helm of Allied Climate Partners, a philanthropic investment organisation.
JP MORGAN AM ASIA ETFS HEAD SEAN CUNNINGHAM DEPARTS
JP Morgan Asset Management’s Asia head of ETFs Sean Cunningham has left the firm, a spokesperson confirmed with AsianInvestor.
AsianInvestor understands he left at the end of August.
Philippe El-Asmar, Asia-Pacific head of ETF, digital and direct, will continue to drive the growth of the firm’s ETF business across the region, the spokesperson said.
Cunningham joined JP Morgan Asset Management as Asia head of ETFs in 2018. He’s based in Hong Kong.
Before that, Cunningham was with BlackRock iShares where he last served as Asia Pacific head of capital markets. Prior to that, he worked at Barclays Capital and Schroders Investment Management.
FRANKLIN TEMPLETON TAPS GREATER CHINA SALES ROLE FROM BNP PARIBAS AM
Franklin Templeton hired Eric Ng as senior retail sales director, Greater China, starting August 23, the firm confirmed with AsianInvestor.
This is a newly created role. Amongst his other sales responsibilities, Ng will also focus on delivering Franklin Templeton’s investment solutions to clients for the Greater China retail business.
Ng continues to be based in Hong Kong, reporting to Simon Wong, co-head of Hong Kong and head of retail sales, Greater China.
Ng joined Franklin Templeton from BNP Paribas Asset Management where he spent the last nearly seven years. He was most recently senior client relationship manager, intermediary sales, Greater China.
Following Ng’s departure, BNP Paribas Asset Management will be looking to expand the intermediaries sales team with three senior hires, the firm's head of private banking sales Asia Pacific and intermediary sales Greater China, Guenter Tschiderer, told AsianInvestor.
In the interim, the Hong Kong-based private banking and intermediary sales teams continue to manage client relationships in the region.
MAN GROUP HIRES MAX DAVIES AS APAC INSURANCE DIRECTOR
Man Group appointed Max Davies as director, Asia-Pacific insurance to support its Man Global Insurance Solutions team.
Davies will also support the recent acquisition of Man Varagon which has several existing strategic partnerships with insurance clients.
In the newly created role, he will report to Nick Humphreys, global head of insurance at Man Group. He will continue to be based in Hong Kong.
Davies joins the firm from Wellington Management, where he spent eight years and held positions within the global insurance solutions team, supporting European and Asian insurers in London and Hong Kong. He was most recently Wellington’s insurance strategist in Hong Kong.
M&G INVESTMENTS GETS APAC RISK HEAD FROM JANUS HENDERSON
M&G Investments (M&G) has appointed Elaine Cheung as head of risk and compliance in Asia Pacific.
In this newly created role, she will lead the risk and compliance functions across the region. She will have advisory compliance oversight of M&G’s expanding investment capabilities in the region and assume her role on October 9.
Cheung was most recently Asia-Pacific head of risk and compliance at Janus Henderson Investors. She has also held regional roles at Ashmore, Pimco, and BlackRock in Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore.
CBC GETS NEW PRIVATE CREDIT HEAD
Singapore-based private healthcare investment firm CBC Group has appointed Lynn Cheng as managing director in its private credit team.
Prior to CBC Group, Cheng was an executive director with Beijing-based alternative asset management firm CDH Investments, where she focused on private credit and mezzanine investments. Her responsibilities included sourcing, assessing, executing, and monitoring credit investment opportunities, as well as fund raising for all credit funds.
Before joining CDH in 2017, Cheng worked at Deutsche Bank for nine years, where she started as a graduate trainee and most recently served as director of global markets, focused on the credit investments of cross-border M&A deals.