Standard Chartered promotes Sean Wallace

Standard Chartered has promoted Sean Wallace to head of origination and client coverage following the promotion of Vis Shankar to chief executive officer for the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Europe from May 1.

Wallace will continue to be based in Singapore, while Shankar will be based in Dubai and will become the senior-most Standard Chartered executive to be based in the Middle East. He will report to Peter Sands, group CEO of Standard Chartered, and will replace Gareth Bullock, who will retire from the Standard Chartered board later this month. Shankar has also been appointed a director of Standard Chartered Bank with effect from May 1. He will relinquish the origination and client coverage responsibilities but will retain his other existing roles as executive chairman of principal finance and co-chairman of the private bank.

Wallace was earlier group head of corporate finance, which is also a role he took over from Shankar. In his new role he will continue to report to Mike Rees who is CEO of wholesale banking.

Wallace joined Standard Chartered in 2008 from Franklin Templeton's private equity arm, Darby Overseas Investments, where he headed the Asia business. But Wallace was at Darby for less than a year and spent most of the past decade at J.P. Morgan. He held a variety of roles at the US bank, including co-head of investment banking for Asia ex-Japan and head of capital markets. Wallace worked at Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns before he joined J.P. Morgan.

Wallace joined Standard Chartered at the same time as the London-listed bank poached Charles Alexander from Lehman Brothers to head origination and client coverage for Northeast Asia, reporting to Shankar. Alexander jumped ship last month to Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he will head corporate banking coverage for Asia-Pacific.