The trust, fund administration and corporate services provider has named a new CEO.

Vistra, the trust, fund administration and corporate services provider, has appointed Alan Brown as group chief executive and Geoff Weir as group chief financial officer. They join the firm in April.

After former CEO Martin Crawford moved to be non-executive director last June, Vistra chairman Simon Hinshelwood has been acting as interim executive chairman while the firm hunted for a successor. Hinshelwood will resume his non-executive chairman role on the board after Brown takes up the CEO role.

Geoff Weir is Vistra’s new chief financial officer following the departure of former CFO Lawrence Tsang in 2018.

Brown and Weir will be based in Hong Kong. Brown has worked in several industries and has lived and worked in the UK, Europe, and Asia, with a particularly strong China experience. He was most recently CEO of ASCO Group - an Aberdeen, Scotland-based global oil and gas services company. Prior to this, Brown was CEO at Rentokil Initial and was CFO at Imperial Chemical Industries (which was acquired by Akzo Nobel in 2007). He spent 25 years at Unilever in various roles in the UK and Europe, before heading up Unilever’s operations in China and Taiwan.

Weir has held a number of group CFO positions with global companies, including Scotts Philips Associates, Exridge, Digicel, and most recently Sinar Mas in Indonesia. He has extensive experience in strategy, planning, operations, M&A, compliance, and risk management in multiple sectors. 

“Vistra has been on a rapid growth journey, expanding from a local company operating in five markets 10 years ago, to a truly global organisation with over 4,300 employees in 46 jurisdictions. I am confident that Alan and Geoff’s strong track record and expertise will enable Vistra to achieve its continuing growth ambitions and I look forward to working with them both,” Hinshelwood said.