VTB Capital has made two senior appointments to help drive its expansion in Asia. The Russian investment bank has hired Xin Lin as head of multi-product sales for China and Wei Chen as a banker in its corporate and investment coverage team. Both women are based in Hong Kong.
Lin will be responsible for sales and origination, and fixed income across Chinese corporate, investor and financial institutional clients. Functionally, she reports jointly to Philip Hamilton, global fixed-income sales, and to Makram Abboud, CEO for the Middle East and Africa and co-head of the international multi-product origination and distribution group. Regionally, she reports directly to Damian Chunilal, Asia CEO.
Lin joins from Nomura in Hong Kong, where she was head of global finance and chief operating officer of China since 2008. Before that, she worked for three years at Lehman Brothers as head of the China risk solutions group and global finance. Earlier in her career she also held senior positions in the fixed income division at UBS, and started her career with J.P. Morgan in Singapore.
As part of VTB Capital’s corporate and investment coverage team, Chen is responsible for Chinese corporate, government and financial institutional clients. She will be focusing on state-owned entities as well as private-sector clients.
Operationally, Chen reports to Riccardo Orcel, deputy CEO at VTB Group, and regionally to Chunilal.
Between 2000 and 2006, Chen worked at the global markets division of Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, and previously spent six years at the investment banking division of Lehman Brothers in New York and Hong Kong. She is a member of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and also a member of the Shanghai Women’s Federation and the All China Youth Federation.
“China is Russia’s largest trading partner in Asia, and both countries are continuing to actively develop bilateral cooperation,” says Atanas Bostandjiev, CEO, UK and International of VTB Capital. “I am confident that the appointments of Xin Lin and Wei Chen at VTB Capital’s Hong Kong office will significantly expand the company’s business opportunities in one of our most important markets.”
VTB Capital is the investment business of VTB Group. Since its foundation in 2008, VTB Capital has taken part in more than 400 equity and debt capital market deals and claims to have attracted more than $162.7 billion of investments to Russia and the CIS.
The bank has its headquarters in Moscow, and also operates in London, Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, Sofia, New York, Paris and Vienna.
“VTB Capital continues to pursue a strategy of international expansion, with an actively growing customer base, range of products and services in Asia,” says Chunilal. “These senior level hires demonstrate our continued commitment to the Chinese market and to our Asian strategy.”
