KKR on Tuesday unveiled a shake-up of its Asia leadership, with Ming Lu named sole head of Asia private equity and his former co-head, David Liu, quitting with Julian Wolhardt to start a new China-focused investment firm.
Lu will also serve as interim head of China until KKR appoints a successor and continues to report to Joseph Bae, who will continue in his role as managing partner of KKR Asia.
KKR also named Ashish Shastry its head of Southeast Asia. Shastry has more than 18 years of private equity experience and joins from Northstar, where he has served as a managing partner since 2011.
Prior to that, he was a partner and head of Southeast Asia at TPG Capital, where he held various investment roles from 1998 onwards.
Other joiners included Zhen Ji as managing director of KKR, China. Ji was previously at Citic Capital, where he had served as a managing director since 2009.
Prior to that, he held various investment and management roles at EQT Partners, Monitor Group, Metainternet and Microsoft.
Hyoung Seok Lim comes onboard at KKR as managing director of KKR in Korea. Lim has more than 23 years of management consulting and operational experience, including 15 years at McKinsey where he was a partner in the Seoul office.
Rob Yang joined KKR earlier in the summer as a managing director leading KKR's real estate business in Greater China. Yang was previously with The Blackstone Group, where he was a leader of Blackstone's China team for the last nine years, helping to establish the firm's China real estate investment platform and leading a number of key transactions in Greater China.
Ming Lu joined KKR in 2006, soon after the firm opened its Hong Kong office. Prior to KKR Lu was a partner and managing director in the Hong Kong office of CCMP (formerly JP Morgan Partners Asia). During his time there, he was involved in investments in Mando Corporation, Haitai Confectionery, Rhythm Corporation, Yellow Pages Singapore, Sanda Kan Industrial, Metalform Asia, and Air International Thermal. He also served on the board of directors of many of these companies.
Prior to CCMP, Lu worked at Lucas Varity, an automotive component supplier, and in roles before that at Kraft Foods International and Citic. He had previously studied economics at China's Wuhan University of Hydro-Electrical Engineering.
