2020 Speakers

2020 Speakers

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Kate Birchall

Head of Asia Pacific

LCH

Kate Birchall is Head of Asia Pacific for LCH Ltd. In her role, she is responsible for LCH’s business in the region, including the CCP’s existing OTC derivatives clearing operations in Sydney and Tokyo. 

Prior to joining LCH in October 2018, Kate was Head of Portfolio Optimisation and Collateral at National Australia Bank. She has also held senior roles in Structuring, Portfolio Management and Credit Research in Australia and London. 

Kate holds an EMBA from the London Business School and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Queensland.

Susan Buckley

Managing Director Liquid Markets

QIC

With over 30 years’ experience in global financial markets, Susan leads QIC’s Liquid Markets Group (LMG) in the management of a diverse range of global listed market solutions for QIC’s clients. LMG manages $26 billion in cash, fixed income and absolute return portfolios and over $70 billion* in overlay exposures on behalf of clients. LMG undertakes research, portfolio construction, ESG integration, risk management and best execution across cash, fixed income, credit, inflation, FX, equity derivatives and commodity markets, enabling LMG to offer specialised solutions across active management, asset rebalancing and exposure management, liability matching, hedging and downside protection.

Before joining QIC in November 2001, Susan held strategy and portfolio management positions as Senior Vice President at Bankers Trust Funds Management, Head of Strategy for NRMA Asset Management and Manager, Fixed Interest, at Suncorp Investment Management. Earlier in her career, Susan worked as an economist for National Australia Bank and was Director, Foreign Exchange Services with Syntec Economic Services.

Susan has a Bachelor of Economics (University of Queensland), a Graduate Diploma in Economics (University of Melbourne), an MBA (University of Queensland) and is a member of Chief Executive Women. Susan was recently recognised for her contribution to the finance sector being awarded the University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor’s Alumni Excellence Award, October 2017.

* Figures as at 31 July 2020.

Wai Kin Chan

Head of Asia Pacific

BidFX

Wai Kin Chan is the Head of Asia Pacific of BidFX, Singapore Exchange’s subsidiary focused on providing solutions to the foreign exchange market. He is responsible for sales team leadership, driving sales growth in the region as well as general management responsibilities across APAC.

Prior to BidFX, Wai Kin was the Head of Asia Pacific Distribution for XTX Markets, a leading quantitative non-bank market maker. He has nearly 20 years of investment banking experience, which began when he started his career at JPMorgan/Guaranty Trust Global Markets FICC as a developer. Next, he moved to Barclays Capital to provide cross-product Futures & Options, Equities and FICC development, client services and support.

Wai Kin then joined Morgan Stanley as the Head of FICC eCommerce Sales to run their electronic FX business for Asia Pacific, where his expanded role covered FICC and oversight into eFX trading & sales, FX Prime Brokerage, and voice sales into banks, corporates and intermediaries for the whole Asia Pacific region.

Wai Kin is an advocate of cultural and environmental awareness through film, technology, sports and travel. He founded a regional bicycle related non-profit organisation to promote the development of youth in sports at the local grassroots community level.

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Binay Chandgothia

Managing director and portfolio manager

Principal Portfolio Strategies

Binay is a Hong-Kong based Portfolio Manager for Principal Portfolio Strategies, an investment boutique within Principal Global Investors. His entire career spanning 26 years has been in portfolio management, encompassing asset allocation, fixed income, and equities. Prior to his current role, he served as Chief Investment Officer for Principal Global Investors (Hong Kong) and Principal Asset Management (Asia) where he was responsible for overseeing investments in the Hong Kong region. He joined the Principal Financial Group in 2000 in India and was the Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Principal's Indian Mutual Fund operations before relocating to Hong Kong in 2005. Prior to that, he spent 7 years in various portfolio management roles with India's largest banking group, State Bank of India. Binay has a post-graduate diploma in business management, equivalent to an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management and a bachelor's degree in commerce from St. Xavier's College. He holds a Financial Risk Manager certification from the Global Association of Risk Professionals and has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Kyle Davies

Co-Founder, Chairman

Three Arrows Capital

Three Arrows Capital is a hedge fund manager founded in 2012 by Kyle Davies and Su Zhu. It focuses on crypto trading and principle investing, including recent strategic investments in Deribit and Blockfi. Prior to 2012, Kyle was a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong.  

Divya Devesh

Asia FX Strategist

Standard Chartered

Divya covers Asia FX strategy, based in Singapore. He provides views on the latest developments in FX markets, and recommends trade ideas and hedging strategies for institutional and corporate clients. He is quoted regularly in the media on financial-market developments. Divya has often been ranked among the most accurate forecasters for EM Asia FX by Bloomberg. Prior to his current role, he was a G10 FX strategist for the Bank. He joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2010. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He is a CFA charterholder.

Virginie Duval

Head of Legal APAC Regulatory Advisory

BNP Paribas

Regulatory expert and manager covering legal and regulatory developments impacting the banking activities, market activities and post trade activities.

Mike Gallagher

Managing Director (Research and Strategy)

Continuum Economics

Mike Gallagher is Managing Director (Research and Strategy) in our London office, where he writes on global economic themes; policy and across financial markets. He has extensive experience of providing independent markets and economics research in a global organization. He was at IDEAglobal between 1989 and 2015 in various roles including Director of Research, Senior FX strategist, Senior Bond Strategist and Head of Economics and before that a UK economist and debt analyst at MMS.

Kevin Gin

Principal

Alpha Capital

Kevin focuses on valuation anomalies and believes in detailed research and analysis and works with a group of like minded professionals within his investment ecosystem that lead up to investment decisions. Kevin was a volunteer with CFAS - UIRC, an advisor to CFA Institute China-India strategy team and was a Board Member of CFA Singapore and Secretary. Kevin has spoken for CFAI across the region (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Singapore, Manila, Bangkok, HCMC, Hanoi) and has conducted lectures in Beijing Normal University, Zhongshan University-Lingnan College, National University of Singapore, HKUSpace and the Wealth Management Institute. Kevin is also a member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore - Commercial Affairs Department Panel of Experts on Securities Offenses and also serves as a senior advisor to GoDigitalediaGroup (a leading media company focused on intellectual property rights management. GDMG is transforming how music networks and brands, senior advisor to AlteredVerse (a Geo spatial spinoff building digital twins in the Metaverse), CIO to Smobler Labs (an Animoca and The Facebook investee company, focused on the Metaverse - builds, GameFi and Phygital), and founder of Being Human Capital.

Kevin brings with him more than 30 years of investment experience and was the Head of Greater China Property Research with Yuanta Securities (Hong Kong) with responsibilities ranging from research coverage and analysis, marketing, assisting in primary and secondary equity issues, PE and funds. Prior to Yuanta, Kevin was the SVP with Pacific Star Financial (a subsidiary of Pacific Star Group) and was engaged in fund creation, structuring, documentation, marketing, fund raising and investment. Kevin was also the Chief Operating Officer of CITIC Securities (formerly known as CITIC Frontier China Research), Managing Director of Matrix Venture Capital, Director of Matrix Venture Catalyst, Director of Kleinwort Benson Securities Asia, Head of Regional Property and Singapore Country research. Prior to his senior management appointments, Kevin was a regional special situations analyst with Barclays de Zoette Wedd, a quantitative analyst with BZW Australia (both part of Credit Suisse), Assistant Manager (FX) with Chase Manhattan Bank Singapore and a Japanese equity salesman with Nikko Merchant Bank Singapore.

Kevin graduated with an MBA from New York Stern School of Business/Australian Graduate School of Management in 1992 and a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil, Hon's) from the University of Melbourne in 1986. Kevin was awarded the Australian Post Graduate Scholarship Award and an AGSM scholarship and was conferred the Chartered Financial Analyst charter in 1992.

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Quentin Miller

Head of Institutional FX, Asia Pacific

LMAX Exchange

With over 10 years of electronic trading experience, Quentin is contributing to LMAX’s growth in APAC with a focus on institutional sales, product enhancements and liquidity management. Prior to joining LMAX in 2017, Quentin was head of e-trading in Asia for Standard Chartered. He also held senior positions at RBS and Commerzbank and was the founder and executive director of a proprietary trading firm in London. Quentin holds an MSc in spacecraft technologies from University College London and an MSc in electronic engineering from Supelec, Paris.

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Khoon Goh

Head of Asia Research

ANZ

Khoon is the Head of Asia Research for ANZ. He oversees and co-ordinates the Asia economics and strategy research functions in Singapore. His particular area of focus is on Asian currencies. Khoon actively travels to market ANZ's views to investor clients, such as central banks, hedge funds and real money; as well as corporate clients. He also appears regularly in the media. ANZ's Asia research team have been ranked in the top two for FX Research and Market Coverage as voted by financial institutions in the AsiaMoney FX Poll in the last five years (2012 to 2016). ANZ was also ranked second for best regional team for Asian macroeconomic research in the AsiaMoney Fixed Income Poll 2016, and ranked first for three years running in the KangaNews Fixed-Income Research Polls between 2015 and 2017 for best research on Asian markets. ANZ was the top EM Asia FX forecaster in 2015 and 2016 as ranked by Reuters. Khoon has over 15 years of experience working in various economic and strategy roles across both the public and private sectors. Graduating with a Master of Commerce (Hons) degree majoring in International Economics from the University of Auckland, Khoon was the Manager in charge of the New Zealand Treasury's Macroeconomic Forecasting Team where he was responsible for producing the official government forecasts that underpin the Budget and key policy decisions. He also served as an Economic Adviser at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

Axel Hauke

Global head of treasury trading

Partners Group

"Financial Markets Professional with 10 years international experience in trading, risk and treasury management. In charge of Partner Group's Asia-Pacific Multi-Asset Execution Trading and currently reviewing the group's TCA capabilities." 

Kenneth Ho

Executive Director, Asia Head of Macro e-distribution

Morgan Stanley

Kenneth Ho is the Asia Head of Macro e-Distribution at Morgan Stanley. Based in Singapore, Kenneth is responsible for the distribution of Morgan Stanley’s electronic FX and Rates offering to institutional clients in Asia. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Kenneth worked at Barclays in Hong Kong and Singapore in various product groups within the electronic trading space including FX, Rates, Credit and Equity Derivatives. Kenneth graduated with a Bachelor of Business Management from Singapore Management University.

Akira Hoshino

Head of Foreign Exchange

Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc.

Akira Hoshino is the Head of Foreign Exchange at Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc., responsible for FX sales and trading activity in Japan. Prior to joining Citi in July 2019, Hoshino was most recently Co-Head of the Global Markets Sales & Trading Division at MUFG Bank and Global Head of Foreign Exchange and Local Markets at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Hoshino also has a wealth of experience in various industry organizations, including as Chair of the Tokyo Foreign Exchange Market Committee from April 2009 to June 2019 and currently serves as Vice Chair of Global FX Committee since May 2018.

Richard Jerram

Chief Economist

Top Down Macro

Richard Jerram is an economist with three decades of experience in financial markets, mainly in Asia. He has lived through the Japanese bubble of the late 1980s and then the Asian Financial Crisis, as well as more recent shocks. Richard was Head of Asian Economics for Macquarie Securities and then Chief Economist for Bank of Singapore from 2011 until he left to set up Top Down Macro, his own consulting firm, in June 2019. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and is a CFA Charterholder.

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Alexandre Kech

CEO

Onchain Custodian

Alexandre Kech has 20+ years of experience in the capital market industry. From global custody and asset servicing at the Bank of New York Mellon to data standardisation and Head of Securities & FX APAC at SWIFT, Alex has developed a strong post-trade industry leadership experience, extended in recent years to digital assets and blockchain.

Alexandre transitioned to a new challenge in November 2018 when he joined Onchain Custodian as the CEO of the company in charge of building and launching, with Da Hongfei (Chair of the Board), Raymond Cheong (CSO) and El Lee (COO), an institutional digital custody service in Singapore. The solution is live since April 2019.

Onchain Custodian believes in solving non-competitive industry issues through collaboration. Alexandre is the co-chair of the Global Digital Finance (GDF) Custody working group and is the convenor of the ISO TC68 / SC8 / WG3 building an international standard for Digital Token Identification.

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Mitul Kotecha

Head of FX and emerging market macro strategy Asia

Barclays

Based out of Singapore, Mitul Kotecha was a TD Securities Senior Emerging Markets Strategist with a wealth of experience. His career as a strategist and economist extends over 25 years and across offices in London, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Prior to joining TD Securities, Mitul held the position of Head of FX and Rates Strategy for Asia-Pacific at Barclays, and prior to that, served as Head of Global FX Strategy and Head of Asia Research at Credit Agricole CIB.

Mitul has developed strong client relationships across the region focusing on Asian macro strategy and global emerging markets. His coverage of financial products spans bonds, interest rates, equities, and foreign exchange. Mitul has been highly ranked in various FX research and forecasting polls including FX Week, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Asiamoney.

He is a frequent speaker at various economic and financial global conferences, is regularly consulted by the media for views on markets and economies, has given a TEDX talk, and authored the book “Chronology Of A Crisis.” Mitul has appeared on business channels such as CNBC and Bloomberg TV and is regularly quoted in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, and Dow Jones.

Mitul holds a Masters of Science Degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Warwick and an Honours Degree in Economics.

 

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Kok Chong Lam

Executive Director, Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities

SGX Group

Mr KC Lam joined SGX in October 2013. He has overall responsibility for FX and Interest rates and holds the position as the Head of FX and Interest Rate derivatives business in SGX. He is responsible for rolling out new innovative FX and Rates products, driving adoption globally, diversification of customer base and in the promotion of the OTC FX Clearing solutions

Mr Lam joined SGX from CME Group, where he was Executive Director heading the FX / OTC Business Line Management in Asia. Prior to CME Group, Mr Lam was Head of Sales for EBS Asia (ICAP E-Broking, now known as NEX group), where he led the firm's new and existing product sales efforts throughout the Asia Pacific.

Mr Lam also previously held regional leadership positions with Siebel Systems and Commerce One and consulting roles with Oracle Corporation and Booz-Allen & Hamilton.

Mr Lam holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the National University of Singapore and an MBA degree.

Subramanian Natarajan

Head of Global Markets Legal for FX, Rates & Commodities, Asia-Pacific | Associate General Counsel

HSBC

Subramanian Natarajan is Head of Global Markets Legal for FX, Rates and Commodities, Asia- Pacific at HSBC, where he leads the legal team covering the FICC (Fixed Income (Rates and Credit), Currency (FX) and Commodities) businesses and advises on a wide range of transactional and regulatory matters within the Markets division of the Bank. In addition, he is also involved in a number of regulatory change, infrastructure and transformation initiatives undertaken by the group in Asia Pacific and globally.

Prior to joining HSBC, he worked in Clifford Chance LLP, London in the Derivatives and Financial Regulation Group of the firm advising various financial institutions on structured transactions across asset classes and regulatory reform initiatives.

He holds degrees from the National Law School of India University and the University of Oxford. He is admitted to practice in England & Wales and is qualified as an Advocate (non-practicing) India.

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Andrew Ng

President

ACI Singapore - The Financial Markets Association

Mr Andrew Ng is Group Executive of DBS & Head of Treasury and Markets. He joined DBS in 2000 and was named Managing Director and Regional Head of Trading in 2005.

Since 2006, Andrew has been instrumental in leading DBS Treasury and Market’s expansion in the region. In addition, he helped build a pan-Asia trading platform on different asset classes and established a region-wide local currencies derivative capability for the bank. He has also expanded DBS’ capabilities in generic and exotic derivatives.

Andrew has worked in the treasury business for over 32 years. Prior to joining DBS, he was Executive Director at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from 1995 to 1999. In that role, he set up CIBC’s trading platform and derivative capabilities on Asian currencies. Between 1986 and 1995, Andrew was Head of North Asia Trading and Treasurer of Chase Manhattan Bank in Taipei.

Mattias Palm

Head of triReduce FX

TriOptima

Mattias Palm has been at TriOptima for 10 years, and is responsible for managing TriOptima’s business in FX compression and optimization. Prior to joining TriOptima, Mattias served in different roles relating to FX and commodities trading and risk management, for companies such as NASDAQ OMX, Brady Plc, PA Consulting Group, and Capgemini. Mattias holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Iris Pang

Chief Economist, Greater China

ING Bank

Iris Pang joined ING in June 2017 as economist for Greater China. She is responsible for research on the macro-economic and industry trends in the Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Research reports from Iris are shared with ING clients on a regular basis. She is also often interviewed by the media and invited to contribute regular commentary.  

Before joining ING, Iris held a similar position at Natixis between January 2016 and June 2017. Prior to that, she was with OCBC Wing Hang Bank in a similar role for almost a decade.

Iris holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Masters in Commerce (first class honours) from the University of Auckland, and a Bachelor degree in Economics from the University of New South Wales.

Iris was an instructor at the Summer School for Applied Econometric of HKUST and taught distance learning programme on Modern China Economy at the Open University of Hong Kong.

Matthew Pollard

CEO

Mecha Markets

Matthew Pollard is CEO of Mecha Markets, a software development firm, and a portfolio manager at HC Technologies, a leading non-bank liquidity provider and principal trading firm in spot FX.

Earlier, he ran a trading group specialising in currencies at Tower Research Capital, and was an algorithmic trader at Barclays Investment Bank focusing on eFX and electronic NDF trading.

Brett Reeves

Executive Director

Standard Chartered Bank

With over 15 years of derivatives background, Brett joined Standard Chartered in 2013, to assist in the build out of the banks’ Prime Services business which provides financial institutions and corporate clients with access to Interest Rate, Foreign Exchange and Fixed Income Prime Brokerage and central clearing facilities. SCB Prime Services assists client to optimise their derivatives exposures, delivering efficient margining and assisting them to understand and comply with the new regulatory environment. Prior to joining the Standard Chartered, Brett occupied similar roles at both Commerzbank and Citigroup where he was based in Europe.

Vineet Sahai

Head of FX Trading, Asia

Intesa Sanpaolo

Vineet is the head of FX Trading in Asia for Intesa Sanpaolo. He is responsible for building the cash and derivatives business in Asia for Intesa Sanpaolo, He has 13 years of experience in the field of FX, having started as a derivatives trader with Deutsche Bank in London in 2008. Apart from various stints in banks trading FX and derivatives, he was also strategy director for a unicorn startup in India and worked alongside the founder CEO to grow the business 10 fold in a year. He brings the structured world of capital markets along with the mix of having worked in fast changing startup environment together to adapt to new challenges in the financial industry. He graduated from IIT and holds an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

Gopul Shah

Director, Corporate Treasury and Trade Structured Finance

Golden Agri-Resources

In January 2014, Gopul joined Golden Agri-Resources Limited, Singapore to head the Global Treasury and Trade Finance business.  His aim is to align the business to international standards and practices with a focus on revenue generation and risk management, which he successfully accomplished at Cargill. Prior to joining Golden Agri, Gopul spent 10 years at Cargill’s proprietary structured funding, treasury, emerging markets trading, and risk management group. Prior to Cargill, Gopul worked in Thailand, Singapore and USA on corporate, project and trade financing, international commodities trading, mergers and acquisition, proprietary fixed income and money markets.

Gopul is passionate about international business, international finance, commodities, behavioral finance, entrepreneurship, understanding the power of finance, growth of human capital that is currently influencing and driving growth in emerging markets, and the importance of ethics and principles in conducting business in emerging markets.  He has been invited to speak and be a panelist at many external forums organized by international banks, Euro-finance, universities, and also internal forums held by Cargill India.

Gopul holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Mumbai, is a Chartered Accountant by training and Associate CPA Australia. 

Darius Sit

Co-Founder

QCP Capital and Philip Street Partners (PSP)

Darius is the co-founder of QCP Capital and Phillip Street Partners (PSP). 

QCP Capital focuses on digital asset  trading both globally and in local markets (particularly Southeast Asia). QCP also specialises in crypto derivatives (options, forwards, futures) in CEFI and DEFI, with over 1.5 billion USD in assets deployed.

Phillip Street Partners is a Singapore-licensed fund management company with strategies in both digital and traditional assets.

Ping Tan

Global head of eFX liquidity provision, Asia head of eFX & tFX trading

Bank of America

Ping Tan is a Managing Director at Bank of America (BofA). She heads the Asia EFX trading team based out of Hong Kong, with global oversight of the principal EFX traders managing risks for the electronic franchise. Besides her trading risk mandate, she is also heavily involved in product development to expand the BofA electronic offering as well as overseeing all regulatory and governance-related matters for the global EFX business.

Ping joined BofA Singapore office in 2004 as an Emerging Markets FX trader, and relocated to the London office in 2006 before moving to EFX trading in 2007 to expand the offering beyond G10 FX Spot to add Emerging Markets FX Spot and Precious Metal OTC Spot. Post her relocation to Hong Kong in end 2015, she has been focusing on Emerging Markets product initiatives like NDFs and Onshore FX. Beyond her day job, Ping is also heavily involved in all firm wide D&I initiatives and currently sits on the bank’s Hong Kong Philanthropic Board.

Ping graduated from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy.

Kevin Tse

COO & Head of Trading

Ortus Capital Management

Mr. Tse joined Ortus Capital in April 2006 in Trading & Liquidity Management – A global macro manager that manages over 700m USD. He is the COO and chairs the Operating Committee. He is responsible for Ortus’ trade execution, technology/broker selection, investor/sell side relations and risk management. Mr. Tse received his B.Sc. (Hon) in Mathematics in 2002 from Warwick University (UK).

Terence Wu

FX Strategist

OCBC Bank

Terence joined OCBC Global Treasury in January 2016. Overseeing the FX Strategy within the Research and Strategy team, he is responsible for providing market insights, forecasts and trading recommendations on G10 and EM Asian currencies. His views have been cited in international media platforms such as Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as local channels like The Business Times, CNA and The Edge.

Prior to joining OCBC, Terence served in the Singapore public service. Terence holds a B.A. (Hon) in Economics from the University of Melbourne, and a M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Hao Zhou

Director, Senior Emerging Markets Economist

Commerzbank

Hao Zhou currently serves as Senior Emerging Markets Economist at Commerzbank Singapore, covering economics research and FX strategy for the North Asia region. Hao was awarded Economist of the Year (2017) by China Business News. He was also top yuan forecaster (2019) and top China forecaster (2016-2018) according to Bloomberg survey.