Barclays hires Adeline Chien for new private banking role

Barclays has hired Adeline Chien as a managing director to cover ultra-high-net-worth individuals in Hong Kong. She joins from EFG Bank, where she led a team responsible for servicing affluent clients in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chien has already started her new job, which is a newly created position. Her appointment is “part of our ongoing strategy of growing Barclays’ pool of senior bankers who can be walking with our clients through the economic cycles”, said a spokesperson.

She reports to Rickie Chan, market head of Hong Kong, who joined the UK-based lender in August after 16 years at Goldman Sachs.

Chien has more than 20 years of private banking experience. Before EFG, she worked at several financial institutions including UBS and Goldman Sachs.

Under the leadership of Pakorn Boonya-kurkul, who joined Barclays as head of wealth management, North Asia, in May 2011, the bank has increased its North Asia banker teams, with more than half of its bankers now at a senior level.

In December 2011, Barclays hired Carol Chen and Januar Tjandra, as market heads for Greater China based in Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively, responsible for building, managing and growing their team of bankers serving Chinese and Taiwanese clients. Between them, they have since hired eight bankers across the two locations.

Barclays now employs around 100 private bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore, according to the spokesperson.

“[Chien] brings with her an in-depth understanding of sophisticated high-net-worth clients, and her addition to the team will further strengthen our outreach and service to clients,” said Boonya-kurkul.

“We have seen significant traction in our strategy of ‘inverting the banker pyramid’ in Hong Kong as we focus on the hiring of senior bankers with more than 15 years of industry experience,” he added. “This group of bankers has been attracted by both the platform we offer as well as an entrepreneurial culture in which they can provide the best products and solutions to meet the needs of their sophisticated clients.”

Two years ago Barclays opened its second renminbi trade booking centre in Hong Kong to help broaden its product offerings to rich North Asian clients. Then in October 2011, it set up a Greater China desk in Singapore to offer customers across the sub-region the opportunity to book their assets in the city-state.