Victor Chao Tzu-Ping has joined Julius Baer as head of its Greater China team. He will be based in Hong Kong and will report directly to Thomas Meier, chief executive officer for Julius Baer for Asia.
Chao will focus on building the bank’s business in the Greater China region and is charged with further growing Julius Baer’s product capabilities. He has more than 25 years of banking experience and was most recently at Deutsche Bank, where he headed onshore private wealth management for China, based in Shanghai. He also previously headed onshore private wealth management for Taiwan at Deutsche, based in Taipei. A source said that his Taiwan experience is probably the most valuable to Julius Baer.
Another source close to the situation said that Fan Huang, an existing wealth management team member at Deutsche, has taken over Chao’s role there.
At Julius Baer, Chao is filling a position that was earlier held by Catherine Tseng, who joined as a managing director with a focus on the Greater China business in 2007 from Credit Suisse, where she was then heading the Taiwan market. Tseng has now been appointed to a client role, leading a new strategic initiative in the Greater China region to develop the key client segment. She will be based in Hong Kong and will also report to Meier.
“The Greater China market is a top priority for the bank and we are confident that a high calibre banker of Victor’s stature will add strength to the capabilities of our team to maintain the growth of our business in this key market,” said Meier.
“I am also very pleased to announce that Catherine Tseng will act as the head of our key client team, which is a new position developing relationships with key clients as we are confident that Julius Baer’s range of services and open architecture platform can be further customised to meet the expanding needs of these large established clients.”
Meier is acting as chief executive of the recently opened Hong Kong branch of Julius Baer and North Asia CEO, as well as Asia CEO, since Andrea Benenati resigned over the summer. Julius Baer is actively seeking a replacement for Benenati, said a source, and had identified some potential candidates. It hopes to confirm one of them soon.
Julius Baer recently launched its inaugural wealth report focusing on Asia. The Swiss private bank cited that the Greater China region is set to contribute significant global growth in high-net-worth-individuals (HNWI) and forecast that the country will have HNWI wealth of $8.76 trillion across 1.4 million individuals by 2015.
