Pioneer Investments, the asset management subsidiary of UniCredit, Italy’s biggest bank, has announced the appointment of three new senior sales executives across its Asia Pacific region, in a bid to expand its presence in the area.

Martin Park has been appointed sales director for Korea, Hiromi Wada joins as Japan representative and Matthew Marks as sales director Institutional Asia.

With over 10 years’ experience in the financial industry, Park joins Pioneer Investments from HSBC Global asset Management Limited in Hong Kong, where he headed up its Korean Institutional Business team from 2007. Prior to that, he served at Citibank and HSBC in Korea across their retail and high net worth sales organisations. In his new role, Park will be based in Singapore, focusing on mandates and sub-advisory opportunities with leading Korean financial intermediaries.

Wada joins Pioneer from Itau Japan Asset Management, where he was head of financial institutions group at PIMCO for the past three years. He began his career at IBJ and DIAM, as fixed-income portfolio manager and has 26 years’ experience in the financial services industry. Wada will work for Pioneer Investments’ Institutional and sub-advisory space of the market. 

Based in Singapore, Marks will be responsible for Pioneer Investments’ capabilities of central bank reserves, large state pension funds and sovereign wealth funds across Asia (excluding Japan and Korea). Latterly, Marks was director of institutional business at Prudential Asset Management in Singapore. Prior to that, he held a number of senior sales positions with the Macquarie Group, Merrill Lynch and Citibank, based in New York as well as Australia.  

In other recent developments at Pioneer Investments, the start of this year saw the appointment of Jack Lin, head of Asia and the Middle East, who will direct the three new appointees.

“Asia Pacific region is a key area of focus for Pioneer Investments and it is essential that we have the right people in place to help us address institutional needs in this region and to drive our global ambitions. With pension funds in Asia Pacific now larger than those in Europe, and sovereign wealth funds accounting for 40 per cent of the global total in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, the region offers some excellent institutional opportunities,” said Lin.

Pioneer Investments has €162 billion ($210 billion) in assets under management globally at 31 December last year, of which over half is sourced from Italy and just a fraction from Asia. This is an area of focus for the firm and it recently announced a new London emerging markets hub to strengthen its presence in Asia and other fast growth regions.