Credit Suisse has appointed three senior bankers to its Hong Kong and Singaporean private banking ranks, as it announces a restructuring of the division to better retain talent.

Credit Suisse has appointed three senior bankers to its Hong Kong and Singaporean private banking ranks, as it announces a restructuring of the division to better recruit, develop and retain talent.

Song Kun starts as managing director and senior client partner for Greater China in Hong Kong. She reports to Anna Wong, market area head for Greater China, and will be Hong Kong-based.

Song joins from Merrill Lynch (Asia Pacific) where she was managing director of investments for private banking and investment group. Before that, she was executive director of investments at Goldman Sachs Asia.

Meanwhile, following the merger with Clariden Leu earlier this month, chief executive of Clariden Leu, Jimmy Lee, has re-joined Credit Suisse as a managing director. He will be responsible for the integration of the Swiss bank. He reports to Francesco de Ferrari, Credit Suisse’s head of private banking for Asia-Pacific.

He was CEO of the smaller Swiss bank from 2009 and before that, was head of Southeast Asia/South Asia at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. Before Deutsche, he was regional marketing director for Southeast Asia, Australasia and international wealth management at Credit Suisse private bank.

Yee Chin Lit also re-joins from Clariden Leu, where he was a managing director and head of Southeast Asia. His new role is managing director and sector head of the Indonesia market, reporting to Johanes Oeni, market leader for Indonesia. Before Clariden Leu Yee was based at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management in Singapore, and prior to that was also at Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse is about to see its headcount soar. In total around 70 staff from Clariden Leu have joined the private banking division in Asia. As at December 2011, Credit Suisse had around 360 Asia-Pacific relationship managers, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore. Switzerland’s second biggest bank is also in the process of absorbing HSBC’s Japanese private bank, scheduled to take place this June.

A new structure

The news comes in the wake of a far-reaching restructuring of Credit Suisse’s global private bank in a bid to retain talent and grow effectively. “We want to build a business model that is efficient and scalable for long term sustainability, and to build a successful team culture,” said the bank in a note seen by WealthBriefingAsia.

“As Credit Suisse continues to expand its Private Banking Asia Pacific business significantly...we need to strengthen our capacity to retain talent, to place the right people in the right roles and better leverage their strengths.”

The bank has created what it calls a Global Private Banking Frontline Leadership Model, which basically means it expects frontline leaders on all levels to know and understand the key clients of their markets or teams, rather than focusing primarily on their own portfolios. Staff will either follow the management career path or the client career track.

So rather than all relationship managers having responsibility for clients, those on the management career path will focus on their teams. Their roles lie in empowering their team members to further develop their client base. On the management career path, said the bank, there is a clear career progression for team leader to sector head to market leader to market area head.

“Each role has consistent qualification criteria that are based on leadership experience and people management skills, industry network, strategic capabilities, senior client coverage, experience in working cross-divisionally to drive integrated bank solutions for ultra high net worth clients,” said the bank.

Meanwhile, on the client career track, which broadly speaking is the traditional relationship manager, the career path for senior client roles is now clearly defined from RM to senior RM to expert RM to senior client partner, with qualifying criteria based on assets and revenues contribution, depth of industry experience, networks, experience with ultra high net worth client advisory and cross-divisional collaboration.

“This will allow us to clearly identify our top RMs as part of the ultra high net worth community,” said the bank.

Credit Suisse has also created a sector head – a role which already exists in the global wealth management business - that is being introduced in the private banking organization in Asia-Pacific. A sector head reports directly to a market leader and oversees a cluster of team leaders and their teams.

Credit Suisse said it expects the entire exercise to be completed and the new structure to be fully in place in the appropriate markets in the coming few months.