Barclays has appointed John Chang as its country manager in Korea. He replaces Joe Shin, who has decided to retire from the bank after leading its franchise in the country for the past six years, according to a press release yesterday.
Chang, who joined Barclays in 2011 as head of equities for Korea, will continue to hold that role, reporting to Nick Wright, who was recently appointed as head of equities for Asia Pacific, and will now also report to Robert Morrice, chairman and chief executive of Barclays in Asia Pacific. Chang has already started his new role, according to a spokesperson.
Before Barclays, Chang worked at Deutsche Bank, where he was head of global markets equity for Korea and held various roles at Societe Generale and HSBC before that.
“[Chang] has demonstrated strong leadership qualities since joining Barclays and successfully launching our equities business,” Morrice said in the release.
The rest of the bank’s leadership team in Korea includes Jiho Kim, who is head of investment banking, and Silvia Kim, head of local fixed income, currencies and commodities trading.
Under a new transformation plan, Barclays has identified immediate priorities of shrinking its European retail branch network and re-positioning its equities and investment banking operations in Asia and Europe, as well as focusing on the mass-affluent segment.
Earlier this year, Anand Ramachandran was appointed head of Asean equity research at the bank to lead the expansion of Barclays’ coverage of companies in the 10-country region in Southeast Asia.
Several other foreign banks have changed Korea heads this year, causing a round of musical chairs —Sung Eun Ahn quit Bank of America Merrill Lynch in April to fill a gap at Deutsche, prompting BoA Merrill to hire SeungGu Park from Credit Suisse to replace him.
