As we suggested yesterday,consulting can be a good entry-point for a career in banking – particularly if you’re happy for your career in banking to be based around banking strategy as opposed to M&A or sales and trading. Now, Sébastien Guillo, head of strategy and planning for HSBC France, proves our point.

Aged just 30, Guillo became head of strategy at the British bank in September. It’s a role that entails a position on HSBC’s executive board. In a lengthy interview on our French site, Guillo says early promotion in strategy roles isn’t unusual – his predecessor also got the job when she was 30, and Daniel Klier, the group head of strategy at HSBC, isn’t much older than 35.

If you want to make it in banking strategy, it helps to spent some time as a strategy consultant. Klier is ex-McKinsey & Co. and Guillo spent three years working for Oliver Wyman in London, Paris, Germany and Italy. He says strategy consulting is, “an excellent preparation” for a career in banking and that time in consulting provides comprehensive and condensed exposure to a sector. In Guillo’s case, it helped that he was a consultant between 2007 and 2010, just as the financial services industry was going through the paroxysms of the financial crisis. “I was able to cover some extremely diverse projects,” he says.

Guillo was headhunted to move into banking. HSBC approached him for a position as senior business planning manager, a role that combined strategy, finance and corporate finance. He did that for two years before being promoted internally to head of finance for commercial banking in France, and then again to head of strategy and planning.

Guillo wasn’t always a strategist. Before undertaking an MBA at France’s Essec Business School, he spent six months as a corporate finance intern for boutique firm Oddo & Cie. So, why didn’t he go into corporate finance? Guillo says he wanted something a bit broader: “I was essentially putting pitches together for clients and executing two deals in M&A and DCM. It was a very useful and interesting experience, but as well as the financial vision, I wanted a more global view on banking from an operational perspective.”

Guillo has got to the top by job-hopping, albeit internally. Although he’s been at HSBC since 2010, he’s had three jobs at the bank in four years. And he spent just 36 months at Oliver Wyman. So, is skipping from role to role the way to get ahead? “It’s the result of opportunities that I’ve had, and a strong urge to learn,” says Guillo, admitting that he’s also strongly inclined to swap jobs every three years because doing different things is “healthy” and it allows you to quickly acquire “new competencies.”

If you’re a young person who wants to go into banking now, Guillo advises looking beyond the front office. Areas like risk, compliance, digital marketing, and technology are where the growth is. Big data is emerging as a whole new career. – Chief Data Officers who analyse client data and devise strategies based around their findings are increasingly popular. “Technical competency isn’t enough on its own,” he adds. “You also need to be passionate… Intellectual curiosity, personality and self-awareness are also increasingly important in banking.”

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Back in September, we reported on recruiters complaining about a surge in counter offers in Singapore scuppering an increasing number of their deals. “The way some candidates behave in terms of counter offers is horrifying. The financial services world is very small and even smaller in Singapore – who knows when that hiring manager you just rejected will end up being your boss anyway or will be in a position to help you in the future,” Richard Aldridge, a director at recruiters Black Swan Group in Singapore, told us at the time.

Now a new study from recruitment agency Robert Walters suggests that counter offers may not even be an effective short-term retention tool Share on twitter for the company actually handing them out. Most (63%) employers who presented counter offers to resigning professionals were in fact turned down, says the survey of more than 1,200 professionals and hiring managers across China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. While the results aren’t specific to the financial sector, they do support the (admittedly self-interested) argument that finance recruiters have been telling us all year: don’t bother countering someone as they will either reject you right away or resign for good within months of “accepting” the counter.

The Robert Walters report says that most professionals (58%) did not tell their employers of their unhappiness before starting a job search, but 85% of employers claim they can identify employees on the verge of resignation. Asian bosses are either very insightful or have a misplaced confidence in their ability to spot trouble. The study also suggests that employers need to beef up their exit interview procedures to glean more valuable “insights about a company’s culture, operations and management to implement positive changes”. A substantial number (44%) of professionals surveyed felt that their exit interview process was “not worthwhile at all”.

Meanwhile:

Motivation more important than innovation in raising productivity, say Singapore CFOs in new study. (Asia One)

Singapore banking system passes MAS stress tests. (Business Times)

The total value of China’s stock market has now surpassed Japan’s. (Financial Times)

30% jump in caseload for Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre in Singapore. (Straits Times)

15 more countries have “crossed the RMB river”. (SCMP)

Is Singapore really only the 53^rd most expensive city to live in? (Channel News Asia)

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BNY Mellon is a late entrant to Asia’s expanding but overcrowded private banking scene – it launched its wealth management practice in Hong Kong only last month. The new unit isn’t fully staffed up yet, however, and BNY is looking to hire more client-facing employees in Hong Kong next year Share on twitter, we can reveal.

BNY is not alone in wanting to attract more private bankers to its Asian ranks – earlier this month both Barclays and Morgan Stanley set out new growth plans for 2015. Private banks are hiring in Hong Kong primarily to win more business from mainland Chinese millionaires, whose wealth shot up 20.5% between 2012 and 2013, according to a Capgemini and RBC report. But recruitment is often hampered by a local shortage of private bankers and the unwillingness of clients to move their assets to a new platform.

The type of private banker that BNY wants to attract in Hong Kong, however, is not identical to that of its rivals. Unlike UBS, JPMorgan and other large firms, BNY won’t be offering capital markets services to private clients and will concentrate instead on investment strategies, wealth planning and family governance. Chuck Long, a 13-year BNY veteran who moved from New York to Hong Kong in 2013 as head of wealth management for Greater China, tells us about his firm’s “differentiated wealth management model” and the skills you need to succeed within it.

Why did you open a wealth management office in Hong Kong?

More than half of the world’s investable wealth is outside the US and total investable wealth in the Asia‐Pacific region is projected to grow by nearly 10% per year over the next three years. Wealthy people are increasingly seeking more robust wealth management capabilities from their service providers as wealth matures and passes generationally within the family. Services such as tailored discretionary investment portfolios, multi-national wealth planning capabilities, and family governance are becoming increasingly important.

What’s your current wealth management headcount in Hong Kong and are you planning to expand?

We will end the year with about 10 client-facing staff and 50 operations staff, with more hires planned in 2015. We maintain a ratio of about 35 to 55 clients per portfolio manager, so we will add portfolio staff as capacity is absorbed. And we are always looking for qualified wealth directors to meet our business development needs.

Is it challenging to recruit given that several other private banks are also trying to grow in Asia?

We’re not having difficulty attracting very qualified talent from the local market. Many industry professionals are looking for a business model that is a better fit for their long-term career goals, as well as more transparent and can better help clients with their wealth objectives. Our model for service delivery is much different from most firms in this market. We split the typical ‘relationship manager’ or ‘private banker’ position into two distinct roles: wealth directors and portfolio managers.

Tell us about them

Our wealth directors are responsible for new business development. They focus on referral networks of CPAs, attorneys and other advisors to wealthy families. They are proficient communicators and they work with sophisticated tools to analyse the current wealth situation and then recommend a more strategically based approach to solving a client’s wealth needs.

Portfolio managers are responsible for managing the client relationship and the investment process. We ‘team manage’ each client and the portfolio manager coordinates the client team. Our portfolio managers are very proficient in investments, have excellent client relationship skills, and have a deep understanding of our firm’s offering and how our services can solve a client’s wealth needs. Their compensation is not based on the products they recommend to clients. Rather it’s based in part on client satisfaction, which we consider paramount.

Some of your clients are US expatriates in Asia. How have you hired enough Asia-based bankers who understand US-focused issues?

It isn’t just the US expat that has exposure to US tax issues and FATCA reporting. Asian residents are increasingly multi-national – with children living in various countries including the US – and they often have investments, a business or property in America. They are therefore exposed to the US tax system and need to plan accordingly. To properly serve high-net-worth families in Asia, both US residents or local residents with US exposure, a wealth manager needs to have a qualified and knowledgeable staff. We have been able to find qualified staff – and through our team approach to management, our portfolio managers and wealth directors are also supported by wealth strategists with expertise in this area. Additionally, our WM staff complete an annual training programme comprised of modules that cover a wide range of US and global investment, wealth planning and family governance topics in detail.

To what extent are you relocating current staff from the US into Hong Kong?

As part of launching services in Hong Kong we felt it appropriate to bring certain employees from the US with experience in our wealth management business model and our systems. We subsequently plan to fill open positions with local hires and bring staff from the US to Hong Kong for career opportunities.

What motivated you to move to Hong Kong and how are you enjoying the job so far?

Launching an expanded capability in Hong Kong gave me an opportunity to use my experience on an exciting new project for BNY Mellon. The job has unique challenges, every day is exciting and has involved the effort of an extraordinary team of professionals in Hong Kong, London and the US to get us launched here in Hong Kong. It’s gratifying to see so many associates commit their time and energy into expanding a world-class wealth management organisation into Hong Kong.

What are some of the highlights of your time in Asia?

Our Hong Kong team recently helped a local prominent family develop a strategy to achieve their wealth goals and they were one of our first clients in our expanded offering. That shows how our differentiated approach to wealth management works very well in this market. While my time has been very absorbed by the business, my wife, Denise, and I enjoy exploring and getting to know Hong Kong. We’ve already developed a fantastic network of friends locally and we enjoy showing our family and friends around Hong Kong when they visit.

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The surge in movement from investment banking to private equity over the past year hasn’t resulted in an increase in pay for juniors making the switch. However, senior private equity professionals have seen their compensation packages swell and the vast majority of firms are planning on hiring again next year.

83% of private equity firms globally intend to increase headcount next year, according to the annual Private Equity and Employment Review by research firm Preqin. Meanwhile, 22% said that they had implemented layoffs over the last 12 months.

Funds in Asia were most likely to have the highest number of deal-makers dedicated to new fund launches, suggested the research, with ten people on average to each fund. In the US, this figure was six people, while funds in Europe get by with an average of four deal-makers for each fund, it said.

However, Preqin’s figures suggest that 2014 has been kinder to senior employees’ wallets. Last year, average compensation for managing directors in the US was $1.34m – this figure has risen to $1.48m in 2014 – while the mean in Europe went from $857k to $962.9k in 2014.

Director pay went from $521k in the US last year to $611k over the past 12 months, while in Europe this went from $347k to $498k on average.

Preqin’s optimism over private equity pay follows that of compensation consultants Johnson Associates, which predicts a 15-20% increase in compensation for private equity professionals on last year.

Perhaps it’s because the top associates at investment banks are now queuing up to get on to the buy-side – think 300 applications for every role – but pay at the junior level has been on the slide, at least in Europe.

Analysts in Europe hauled in an average of $93.7k in 2013, which shrunk to $79.2k this year. Meanwhile, associate pay shrunk across the board, but again particularly in Europe where average compensation went from $152k to $127.3k.

Below is the full breakdown of average compensation for the various private equity roles across Asia, Europe and the US provided to us by Preqin.

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On the day after Thanksgiving, it may not be totally apposite to look at the disappointment of middle-aged financiers. But following on from last week’s lament from a 46 year-old banker who felt his life had been wasted, it’s come to our attention that the CFA Institute’s excellent careers guide contains some similar advice on how to avoid becoming that person.

The CFA’s lament concerns a 45-year-old equity analyst called Joe. Much like the 46 year-old banker whose wife had an affair, Joe’s mid-life job dissatisfaction stems from family issues – he uprooted his family from Boston to New York, where he spent five years working 12-14 hour days, earning $1.4m as an equities analyst at an aggressive brokerage firm. But after five years, his wife unexpectedly suggests a divorce.

“Even though he has made a lot of money, Joe is fundamentally unhappy and stands at the brink of a family disaster,” points out the CFA’s guide. “Over the years, his professional life has consumed almost all his time and energy. He has not been actively involved in raising his 10-year-old son, Tom, and his relationship with his wife, Julia, has deteriorated significantly.’

So, how can you avoid this happening to you?

With the help of some pertinent questions, the Institute helps elucidate where it was that Joe went wrong:

1. He left the first company he worked for after graduation for the wrong reasons. Having risen to become head of research, he was made to ‘principal’ because he wasn’t seen as a strong people manager. Even though the principal role paid the more than the head of equity research position and would have allowed him to pursue his passion (stock picking), Joe didn’t want to be principal because it looked like a demotion.

2. At the start of his career, Joe thought he wanted to be a chief investment officer (CIO), and persisted in pursuing managerial jobs that seemed to take him closer to that goal. This was despite the fact that he was repetitively told that he lacked people management skills and was better making the most of his talent as an equities analyst.

3. Joe didn’t properly research the jobs he was going for. Nor did he consider their potential impact on his lifestyle and family. He quit the first company he worked for for role for a job at another investment firm. However, he didn’t research the new role properly and when he arrived, he discovered that it was fundamentally a marketing role and didn’t play to his strengths. Two years later, he quit this job too. After being laid off from another firm where he was head of equity research (despite his poor people management skills), he decided to focus on being an analyst and to go for the money – hence his five years on Wall Street.

The CFA’s guide doesn’t draw any conclusions from Joe’s tale, but the moral of the story seems to be this: ‘Don’t persist in going for jobs that don’t play to your strengths. Don’t leave a role that’s right for you just because it doesn’t bring the status you think is your due. Focusing on the money is rarely a good idea.’    

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Haters who say you’re as likely to find a new finance job after two years out of the market as to discover a hoard of pirate treasure in an urban park, have been proven wrong. Simon McWhirter, the ex-UBS managing director who had a go at writing ‘silly children’s stories’ after being laid off by the bank in May 2012, has found a new job – two and a half years later.

McWhirter hasn’t gone back to banking, but he has gone back. To the Big Four. 21 years after he left Coopers & Lybrand to pursue a future in banking, he’s become a director in the banking and capital markets division at PWC,

McWhirter’s 21-year career at UBS included time as global head of equity derivatives and commodities product control. At PWC he now works on business resilience in the banking team. “It’s more projects based and I’m able to work with different clients, which is interesting after working in the same bank for a long time,” he says.

As is often the case, it was networking rather than job applications that got him back into the market. “I went to an alumni event and got talking to some PWC partners about what they were interested in and what I was doing and it seemed a good fit,” McWhirter tells us.

For the moment, the children’s books have been left to gestate. “They’re ticking over, but I’m not selling many of them. If I were an extremely rich author, I may not have come back to PWC, but it's a tough world and not many people make a living from writing.  Share on twitterIt was always an extreme long-shot,” McWhirter concludes.

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It’s that time of year. London Business School is inviting applications for its MBA programme. So is Harvard. So is Wharton. And so are countless other top MBA schools globally. 

But will an expensive MBA really make much difference to your finance career? Or are you just throwing your money away?

As our decision-tree infographic below clarifies, it only makes sense to an an MBA if you satisfy several preconditions. You need experience, you need intelligence and you need money – or an ability to take out a large loan. Importantly, you also need to want to work in the right parts of financial services.

Our own CV database suggests that there’s not much point in studying an MBA if you aspire to work in trading – only 7% of trading professionals who’ve uploaded their resumes to our database in the past 12 months have an MBA qualification. There’s more point to studying an MBA if you want to work in an investment banking division (IBD), where 15% of people have one. MBAs are especially prevalent in IBD in the Americas. where 19% of IBD professionals are MBA qualified (compared to 16% in APAC and 13% in Europe.)

Finally, splashing hundreds of thousands of dollars on an MBA could be worthwhile if you hope to work in private equity someday. As a sector, private equity has the greatest concentration of MBA qualified individuals in financial services, and US private equity firms have the most of all. However, MBAs only make up 19% and 22% of the total PE populations respectively. When you’re making the decision, it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of people in financial services don’t have an MBA.

Singapore’s employment rate has hit an all-time high. New figures from the Ministry of Manpower show that the rate rose to 79.7% this year – up slightly from 79% in 2013.

The tight labour market overall is replicated in the Singapore finance sector. “I don’t see many candidates who are long-term unemployed, out of work for more than a few months,” one recruiter told us last week. Indeed, total employment in “finance and insurance services” in Singapore increased from 183,600 in June 2013 to 191,400 in June this year, according to the latest available sector data on the MoM website.

Job losses in back-office banking because of offshoring to lower-cost locations in Asia have been offset by pockets of employment growth elsewhere in the finance sector – risk, compliance and relationship management in particular. The growth of outsourcing firms and the belated rise of contract-based roles in Singapore have also helped to mop up talent. And while Singapore’s skilled-immigration regime remains liberal by global standards, banks are certainly putting more effort into hiring local staff as they try to comply with the letter and spirit of the Fair Consideration Framework.

Meanwhile:

Sanjeev Bajaj becomes new CEO of ANZ in India. (Economic Times)

China to launch deposit insurance. (Financial Times)

Standard Chartered hit with ratings downgrade. (Business Times)

Pakistani accountant accuses Hong Kong banks of racism after being asked why he wants to open account. (South China Morning Post)

Singapore Institute of Management’s celebrates 50th anniversary and completion of campus expansion. (Channel News Asia)

MAS reprimands HSBC for breach of Financial Advisers Act. (Business Times)

Which Singaporean bank makes the best value investment? (The Motley Fool)

Bank lending stable in Singapore in October. (Channel News Asia)

Singapore employees set to enjoy 11 public holidays in 2015. (Straits Times)

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If you’re looking to inject some stability into your IT or operations career in Singapore, working for an outsourcing company may now be preferable to working for a bank.

Offshoring jobs out of Singapore into cheaper offices elsewhere in Asia is not the only way banks have been reducing their back-office and fintech costs of late – some of these roles have been outsourced to external vendors.

But the crumb of career comfort for Singaporean operations and IT professionals is that these outsourcing providers are now increasingly hiring in Singapore and they want people with local banking expertise Share on twitter. While the amount of vacancies at vendors is never likely to fully compensate for job losses at banks, recruiters have singled out the outsourcing sector as a growth market for jobs in 2015.

“We’ve seen a huge recent expansion in the vendor companies and their hiring is now very active,” says Vince Natteri, director of recruitment at search firm Pinpoint Asia. “This year vendors are one of the fastest growing sectors for our financial technology business in Singapore,” adds Craig Brewer, a director at recruitment agency FiveTen Group in Singapore.

He adds: “There’s steady demand from vendors who need people with Singapore experience and pretty much 100% of these roles require either working knowledge of a banking system or direct banking experience. The jobs are about 80% permanent as vendors want to lock in good people who they can move from one banking client to another.”

Within fintech in Singapore, the jobs that are “typically outsourced” are in application development, notably Java and .Net technologies, says Chay Creighton, a senior consultant at recruiters Greythorn Technology. “These more common skill-sets lend themselves to outsourcing as sufficiently-skilled teams can be deployed with little training needed. Also, development work is usually project based, which allows manpower to be beefed up or trimmed down according to fixed timelines.”

Back-office jobs are also opening at up at vendor firms in Singapore, mostly at analyst to associate level and in areas such as trade settlements and confirmations, brokerage payments and reconciliations, client services, project management, and business analytics, says Brewer from FiveTen.

The vendors themselves are a mix of Indian and Western companies. UBS, a pioneer advocate of the outsourced model, has alone worked with many of the major players, including Cognizant, HCL Technologies, Infosys, TCS and Wipro. While many of the vendors’ employees are based offshore, typically in India, a minority of them work on-site at banks in Singapore, in roles usually filled by local candidates rather than by relocated staff from headquarters.

For example, BT, the UK communications company that has provided network infrastructure services to Credit Suisse since 2007, has a team working at the Swiss bank in Singapore. Dimension Data, a South African vendor, currently has people at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Singapore working on IT-system integration, according to a recruiter who asked not to be named.

If you want a job at a outsourcing company in Singapore, however, Avaloq is hiring in larger numbers. Deutsche Bank announced in September that from next year it would outsource its entire Singaporean wealth-management back-office operations to the Swiss vendor. Significantly, the jobs this will create will be in Singapore itself – Avaloq is opening a new processing centre there, similar to those it runs in Switzerland and Germany. “They are hiring currently for onshore roles in Singapore,” says the anonymous recruiter.

Candidate interest in jobs at Avaloq and other vendor firms in Singapore is (predictably) high. “It’s a chance to gain a first-mover advantage as outsourcing is now such a big banking-wide trend here – there are now more IT and support roles vacancies on the vendor side,” says Creighton from Greythorn.

“The earlier you move, the more time you have to accumulate experience in a vendor environment and gain exposure to a top-tier bank,” he adds. “Working for a vendor naturally puts you into a client-facing role even if you’re performing a back-office function and allows you to build specialist experience.”

Working hours can, however, be long when you initially start implementing new systems for a new client. “Also, salaries and bonuses are usually lower at vendor companies,” warns Natteri from Pinpoint Asia. “But vendors are perceived as being more stable – both from job-security and work-life balance standpoints. And the working environment is usually more casual compared with the IBs.”

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On Saturday, thousands of CFA level I candidates will sit down and attempt to take their first step towards the notoriously elusive ‘charterholder’ status. Pass rates for the level one exams are generally low, but historically the proportion of candidates making it through in December is below 40% – lower than the June exams when typically 43-50% of people get the thumbs up.

Those who coach people taking the CFA exam recommend taking the level one in December if you have failed earlier in the year. The reason being that you can maintain momentum and ensure you pass all levels over three years, rather than waiting another 12 months for a retake of level one.

By this point, you should be through most of the 300 recommended hours of study. So, how do you ensure you don’t mess it up? Kate Lander, head of education for the CFA Institute for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Nicholas Blain, chief executive of financial training firm Quartic Training, give us their tips.

1. Get tips from those who’ve been through it 

One possible reason for more success in the June exams for CFA level I candidates is that newbies are often surrounded by colleagues and peers who have done it all before, says Lander. Not only will they give you tips on what to expect on the day, they can help you with tactics on how to tackle the exam. It helps, therefore, to talk to as many people who have passed CFA level one before the big day.

2. Have a game plan, play to your strengths

Timing can be a huge issue with CFA level one candidates, who usually take a linear approach to the exam – tackling each question in the order they’re presented. Lander says it’s best to tackle the subject areas you’re most comfortable with first: “I was a trained accountant when I took CFA level one, tackled the financial analysis first. This helped me settle in and gain confidence as well as completing a section of the exam relatively quickly. You need a strategy to tackle the exam.”

3. Get the practicalities right

It sounds basic, but knowing the route to the exam location, making sure your transport links or parking restrictions are all accounted for and having all the right equipment are incredibly important to success during the test itself. Lander says that a lot of CFA level one candidates walk around with a “lost” look on their face because they haven’t planned for the practicalities and arrive flustered and panicked to the exam hall. “I can’t tell you how many people forget their calculator – you need to get the basics right.” Get to the exam hall by 8am, says Blain.

4. Don’t underestimate the ethics section

Ethics in the CFA exam is skimmed over by too many candidates, who rely on the summary notes rather than looking in detail, and instead they spend time on the meatier and more complex financial elements of the exam. “The curriculum goes into detail on the seven sections, 22 subsections, with a wide range of worked examples for each of the Standards of Professional Conduct,” says Bain. “It’s quite likely the exam will contain case studies that are remarkably familiar if you have read this in depth. At this stage in your revision, ethics will often provide the highest marginal benefit from each hour of study. GIPS too – it is a very short topic, yet may produce twice as many questions as deferred tax.”

5. Don’t gloss over the day-job topics

An increasing proportion of CFA level one candidates are students, which means they probably give equal weighting to most technical subject areas. Others are working in full-time jobs, making it more difficult to study and more likely that they will spend less time on the topics related to their day job. This is a key mistake, says Lander. “Every asset manager has a unique valuation approach and we have to apply a standard, for example, and even equity analysts need to study the theory correctly,” she says.

6. Don’t give up on lost causes

“Each of your answers will be one of three types,” says Blain. “Firstly, a confident and hopefully correct answer: mark it, and move on; secondly, a complete guess, so make a sensible guess, and move on; or somewhere in between. For this third group, list the questions neatly at the front of your exam paper. Hopefully, you will have a bit of spare time at the end of the exam: go back now to the questions you have listed, and attempt these ones, and only these ones, again. Your subconscious mind will have been working on them for an hour or two, and you are likely to pick up an extra couple of marks.”

7. Give maximum effort everywhere

Blain says that derivatives is usually a topic a lot of candidates have deemed their weakest and, therefore, they’ve mentally given up on getting many marks from it. “Every topic will have simple questions, even derivatives,” he says. “The differences between forwards and futures, when to exercise a call, how to reduce credit risk. Giving up will only push up your required pass mark elsewhere.”

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If you want to ascend to the pinnacle of investment banking and own three race horses before the age of 40, Financial News has produced a helpful clarification of what it takes. The paper’s annual ’40 under 40 investment banking’ list is a catalogue of top achievers in European IBD, all of whom are under 40 and several of whom are under 35.

For those of you who don’t have the time or stomach for the full list, which has the potential to engender sensations of inadequacy in anyone aged 30+, these are the points of commonality between Europe’s top young investment bankers.

1. Top schools 

Top bankers go to top schools. Oxford and Cambridge Universities feature disproportionately on the Financial News list. The London School of Economics is there too, as are top French schools such as École Polytechnique and HEC.

Nor is it simply a question of getting a top school on your CV. It helps if you have a top school and top marks at that top school. Take Dominic Ashcroft, a 34-year-old managing director in high yield at Goldman Sachs, who has a double first in economics from Cambridge University.

2. Multilingualism

As we noted last month, British bankers aren’t popular in London on the grounds that they’re often lazy and monolingual. Looking at FN’s list of the bankers who are popular, you can see why. Most top IBD professionals in London have an accumulation of European tongues. Take 39-year-old Alessandro Dusi, head of Western European corporate and sovereign derivatives and head of EMEA equity derivatives at Goldman Sachs, who reportedly speaks five.

When Britons do make it to the top in investment banking, foreign languages are a help. 35-year-old Tom Duff Gordon, director of public policy EMEA at Credit Suisse, studied modern languages at Oxford.

3. Masculinity 

Like it or not, being a man seems to be a boon if you want to make it in IBD. There are 40 hot young under-40s bankers on the Financial News list; three of them are women.

4. High stamina sporting achievements

As befits their high-achieving, ultra-masculine, incredibly-demanding profession, successful young IBD professionals like to wind-down with some high-stamina endurance sports. Calvin O’Shaughnessy, the 32-year-old head of metals and mining EMEA for UBS, is a ‘keen athlete’ who intends to compete in three iron man challenges in 2015. 36-year-old Pieter-Jan Bouten at Greenhill is a ‘keen kite-surfer’. He also, ‘cycled unsupported up the highest road in the world in the Himalayas’, although that was 11 years ago before the desk-job took its toll.

5. Work before play

Successful young investment banking professionals prioritize work above sleep and pregnancy-rest. 36-year-old Luisa Leyenaar, director in utilities, RBC Capital Markets, closed a big deal two weeks before having her first baby. 30-year-old Serge Mouracade, vice-president at Zaoui & Co, only took five days off last year. And Bernard Mourad, a 39-year-old managing director at Morgan Stanley, only sleeps four hours a night.

6. Loyalty to the cause

If you want to make it while you’re young in IBD, it helps to find an employer who likes you and to stick around. Take 32-year-old Lazard director Julian Knott, who joined straight from (Bristol) university in 2005, or 39-year-old Alessandro Dusi, who joined Goldman Sachs as a summer analyst in 2000, was running the firm’s derivatives business in Southern Europe in 2004, and has plowed the Goldman furrow ever since.

7. Timely exits to boutiques 

While hot bankers under 40 don’t job hop, they do make calculated leaps to boutique firms and small investment banks offering the opportunity for rapid promotion. 36-year-old (Cambridge graduate) Simon Dowker quit UBS for Jefferies in 2011 and was promoted to managing director in 2013. 32-year-old Merrill Lynch alumnus (and Oxford graduate) Anthony Doeh joined Moelis in 2012 and has worked on several big deals since. 34-year-old (Oxford University) graduate Simon Elliott, quit Deutsche in 2013 and is now head of healthcare at Evercore.

The moral of the story is….boutiques can offer rapid promotion and good deal-flow.

8. Flagship deals

If you want to catch the eye of a journalist making a list of top performing bankers under 40, it helps to play a pivotal role on some pivotal deals. 34-year-old Ashcroft at Goldman Sachs hasn’t just worked on any old high yield deals, he’s worked on, ‘the record-breaking $10.9 billion high-yield bond offering for French cable operator Numericable in April 2014′. This deal reportedly helped gain Goldman fourth place on the high yield revenue ranking league tables.

9. International perspective

If you don’t have a double first in economics from Cambridge University or speak three European languages to mother-tongue standard, you might want to spend part of your education or early career working abroad. We’ve already noted Goldman’s predilection for hiring international students, and it seems that many of the exceptional young bankers under 40 have spent part of their lives living or working overseas. Take the exquisitely named Alexis Taffin de Tilques, a 38-year-old graduate of HEC who grew up on the Ivory Coast, and in Fiji and Indonesia. He now works for BNP Paribas, pricing bond issues for the countries he grew up in.

10. No MBA 

There’s a notable absence of MBAs on the FN list. Yes, Fahd Beg, head of internet and digital media for EMEA at Citi has one (from INSEAD), but plenty of others don’t. Could it be that the two years required for an MBA are a hindrance rather than a help if you want to make it to the top of banking before you’re 40?

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An MBA is not just about getting paid. It’s also about pushing your learning curve, widening your networking parameters and leveraging up some love among the case studies. But money is part of an MBA – why else would you fork out tens of thousands in tuition fees and living expenses if you weren’t expecting to to earn a lot of money at the end of it.

If money is indeed part of your MBA decision matrix, the Financial Times’ new ranking of European Business Schools should come in helpful. It clarifies which MBA courses will transform your earning power and which won’t.

If you want to earn more than $140k (£89k) after you graduate, there are only six elite schools in Europe to choose between. They are: London Business School ($157k), INSEAD ($148k), IE Business School ($147k), Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge ($144k), Iese Business School in Spain ($143k) and IMD Business School in Switzerland ($142k).

Conversely, if you’re not too bothered about earning money at the end of your MBA, you might want to try University of Liverpool Management School, where you’ll earn $57.8k upon graduation. Or there’s Neoma Business School in Rouen, where the average graduating MBA salary is $64.4k. Or Politecnico di Milano School of Management – average starting salary $67k.

The silver lining is that the MBA courses which don’t generate giant incomes upon graduation are priced accordingly. At Neoma, the MBA costs a mere €30.5k ($38k), while a Liverpool MBA costs a mere £13k (£20.5k). This compares to fees of £64k at the London Business School ($100k) and €62.5k ($78k) at INSEAD.

Can you get into banking from a cheap MBA course? Average starting salaries would suggest otherwise. Accordingly, none of Neoma’s MBAs go into banking, although 20% go into management controls. At Liverpool, however, MBA graduates have been hired by both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank - although it’s not clear whether they work in infrastructure or the front office.

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If you work in transaction banking in Singapore, yet another bank has announced a headcount expansion in your sector – this time it’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU).

The Japanese bank now has more than 1,200 staff in Singapore, up from 600 only a “few years ago”, Go Watanabe, BTMU’s chief executive for Asia & Oceania, told the Business Times. Transaction banking, which includes trade finance and cash management, is now the firm’s key growth business in Singapore and across non-Japan Asia. BTMU’s current Singapore-based transaction-banking headcount of 60 will be expanded in a bid to win more business from some 180 Japanese corporates who have regional headquarters in the city state.

BTMU faces formidable competition for transaction banking talent in Singapore, however, and not only from heavyweights like HSBC and Standard Chartered. Japanese rival Mizuho is staffing up in the function as it launches a new transaction-banking unit in Singapore. In trade finance, local banks DBS and UOB are among the most aggressive recruiters, while Australian and Middle Eastern banks were expanding in the function in Singapore earlier this year. Recruiters have told us previously that banks are increasingly having to consider candidates from credit, risk or even client-services backgrounds in order to plug skill shortages in transaction banking.

Away from his transaction banking focus, BTMU’s Watanabe told the Business Times that he would also like to reduce the number of Japanese staff (which currently stands at about 220) in Singapore. “I like to promote internally or hired from the market,” he said. As we reported last month, several other foreign banks in Singapore are stepping up their efforts to hire local talent in the wake of the Fair Consideration Framework.

Meanwhile:

Shanghai’s rise doesn’t mean Hong Kong is on borrowed time as a financial centre, says HKMA boss. (South China Morning Post)

UBS Singapore talks up its digital private banking platform. (Asia One)

Why China’s deposit insurance scheme is itself a big risk. (South China Morning Post)

HSBC targets affluent clients as it opens 12th branch in Singapore. (Straits Times)

Five things to consider after a bank merger. (Economic Times)

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Want to begin your banking career at Deutsche Bank in Asia? While you must have outstanding academic grades, these no longer need to be within a business or finance degree.

Neither do you require a burning ambition to work in investment banking – in fact the bank is targeting Asian graduates who are keen on careers in compliance. And while an internship is still a huge help in securing a full-time analyst job, Deutsche Bank remains open to applicants who have notched up other relevant work or life experiences.

We chatted to Sze Ming Ho, APAC graduate recruitment manager at Deutsche Bank, about recent changes to the type of students and graduates that her firm likes to hire in Singapore, Hong Kong and across Asia.

Which type of degree courses do you target in Asia?

Students are often surprised when they find us on campus running target events to non-business/finance faculty students – even asking us why we’re there! We have many different careers on offer across the bank, so we look for students with a similarly diverse range of skills, interests and degree disciplines. A student with a science or arts background could make an excellent banker, while those who’ve studied business and finance might be more interested in pursuing a slightly different area for their career. For us, it’s about demonstrating what you have learnt in the broadest sense and then applying that knowledge to your future career.

What generally motivates students in Asia to embark on a career in banking?

The banking and financial services industry is still very much at the core of the economic landscape in Singapore and Hong Kong – and across the wider region. The students that we meet recognise the career potential the industry provides as Asian economies become increasingly important globally. Our ability to provide the intellectual challenge and opportunities for continued learning holds lots of appeal.

Are students increasingly interested in careers outside front-office IBD?

Over time, we are seeing increased engagement with students who are interested in opportunities outside the investment bank – ranging from commercial banking roles, through to private wealth and asset management, to our infrastructure functions such as technology and HR. Compliance and risk are drawing an increased number of applicants. We recently held a joint Hong Kong and Singapore compliance-specific event, which saw around 100 students attend. For a typical infrastructure event we’d expect only around 50 to attend, so we were very encouraged that students and careers services seem to recognise the opportunities here.

Which business areas are you focusing on for your 2015 campus recruitment?

We’re a global universal bank which means we offer the full spectrum of banking products and services to our clients. This also means we have a wide range of careers and opportunities to offer, ranging from investment banking and wealth management, through commercial banking, to a vast array of infrastructure functions. The major change in recent years is the relative increase in the requirement for employees in control functions such as compliance. We also have a strategic focus on building the global transaction banking business so we continue to bring in talented young people to this as well as our other divisions.

How is your recruitment divided up across Asian markets?

We continue to hire most of our graduate class into our core banking divisions in hub-office locations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo. However, we’re constantly evolving our business and building our presence across the region. Our graduate recruitment programme now encompasses everything from commercial banking in China, through service centres in India and Philippines, to growing businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.

What do you look for when recruiting summer interns, besides excellent academics?

For us an excellent academic record is the baseline, but we consider a lot more when selecting students. We’re looking for people who really stand out – who can demonstrate genuine passion for the industry and can show us how they will make an impact. Participating in extra-curricular activities and developing skills outside the classroom is a great way to get noticed – it gives us a good indication of their potential. Of course, if those outside interests are aligned with our business activities, then so much the better – but ultimately, we make our decision on the way their minds work and their ability to interact effectively with others.

What would you advise third-year students who haven’t completed an internship but are applying for a full-time graduate job?

Make your experience work for you. It need not be an internship with us or even a banking internship – you may have been involved in volunteer work, a semester abroad or a temporary or part-time job. Tell us about your experiences and how you will use them when you start your career with us. We’re interested in hearing from all kinds of people with different experiences and backgrounds.

Tell us about your application and assessment process

The process for both our full-time and intern hiring is the same, as well as being globally consistent. The usual timeframe, from application deadline to receiving a verbal offer, is four to five weeks. The process starts with students submitting an application on our careers website. From there they are asked to complete an online numerical and verbal reasoning test. We look at a student’s CV as well as their responses on the online form, so we encourage applicants to complete all the questions. These free-text questions help us determine if they’ve done some research into the company and industry, with a well-thought-through answer demonstrating their interest. Successful applicants will be invited to interview with a panel of two interviewers. Those successful in the first round will be invited back for final rounds of interviews. Some of our business divisions may provide a case study, with the interview structured around this.

What makes an internship or traineeships at Deutsche Bank unique?

First and foremost, an internship with us is a real job with real responsibilities. From day one students will get a genuine insight into Deutsche Bank, the work we do and the opportunities we offer. Crucially, we’ll also expect interns to deliver results. On top of this, I would add the commitment to the programme by the senior leadership of the bank. Both interns and graduate analysts benefit from direct exposure to members of our group executive committee and our co-CEOs. The final aspect I’d highlight is the global nature of our graduate programme. It begins with a global induction event, where over the course of three to five weeks, graduates are involved in classroom training, networking and orientation events with their peers, across all divisions and locations. At the end of their first month with the bank, graduates have a global network of colleagues who’ll be invaluable to them throughout their career.

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Deutsche Bank may be making some unexpected end of year hires. But it’s also making some entirely predictable end of year layoffs.

Headhunters in London say Deutsche has got rid of around six traders as part of its pullback from single name credit default swap (CDS) trading. The exits are understood to include Joshua Farber, a credit index trader who joined from Barclays in 2005, and Melvyn Merran, a trader who joined from UBS in 2012. Salespeople are also said to have been let go in the cull, although some staff have been shifted onto high yield desks.

Deutsche declined to comment on the redundancies. They follow reports last week that the German bank put three people at risk in its London-based insurance solutions business and five people at risk in its physical precious metals trading operation.

As we noted earlier, Deutsche has also been hiring. Yesterday it announced the appointment of Kemal Askar as head of European rates trading.

Askar is joining Deutsche from JPMorgan. The lateness of the season might suggest Askar received a generous guaranteed bonus for the move – except that the FCA Register suggests he left JPMorgan in September and Financial News points out Askar was overlooked for promotion when JPM announced its new management line up in May. Deutsche may therefore have scooped him for a salary alone.

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You’re attending an interview for a finance job. The interviewer is looking at you askance, like he wants you to say something special that will transform your prospects and deliver you a job offer. What could it be? Try this…

1. “How can I help this business develop?” 

“The ideal candidates are those who can demonstrate that they’re thinking about what they can do for the hiring company, and not what the hiring company can do for them. “What you don’t want is for a candidate to centre the entire interview around themselves,” says Oliver Rolfe, managing partner at Spartan Partnership Executive Search. “You want candidates to be asking what they can bring to the business.”

2. “I’ve been offered a promotion in my current role, but I think the time has come to move on.”

Interviewees also don’t want to hear that you’re unhappy in the job you’re doing now. Nor do they want to hear that you’ve been treated unfairly, that your boss and colleagues are idiots, or that you need a rest before taking on this great new role.

“Candidates should steer clear of being overly negative about their current employer,” says Kumaran Surenthirathas at the front office search arm of recruitment firm Eximius. “Rather, candidates should speak about the positive impact that they have had at their current employer whilst explaining how a move would directly benefit their career and new employer.” 

3. “I’m happy to leave all the negotiations up to you.”

This is one for when you’re having a preliminary interview with a recruitment firm. Recruiters would rather that candidates desist from contacting line managers directly. “We recently had a candidate who insisted on calling the line manager and demanding that he contact his own boss to pin down the job offer,” says one recruiter. “That kind of behaviour is counterproductive,” the recruiter adds. “Candidates forget that line managers don’t spend all their time recruiting. If negotiation is required, it’s better to leave it to your recruiter as they’re experts in closing deals when it comes to job offers.”

4. “I’ve had interviews with Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Citi, but I feel your strategy is the best.”

You need to make your interviewer feel special. You also need to show that you’re in demand. And you need to show that you understand the strategic terrain of the company you’re joining and can provide some insight into competitors’ plans. This sentence does it all.

5.  “I’m confident that you’ll know the appropriate job title and level for me at your firm, so I’m happy for you to decide where I’ll fit in.”

Job levels are a problem for recruiters and hiring managers. If you’re an associate one and you refuse to accept a new job as an analyst three, even though your level of experience is more appropriate to the analyst role, you will cause some headaches.

“People tend to be quite fixed in their opinions about the level they should be hired into,” says Andy Pringle, managing director of recruitment firm Circle Square. “That’s difficult because some banks can be quirky about promoting people – they might offer an associate role to an analyst two. Those ‘false-associates’ will then refuse to move for anything other than a similar job title – even though no other bank will hire them at that level.”

And if these five utterances don’t get you a job? Pringle says you can always try the magic bullet: “I’d be happy to work for six months without pay – as long as you pay the recruiter’s fee for placing me.”

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In the latest hiring roundup, Barclays and BNY Mellon are hiring in Asia, private equity firms up hiring plans and Deloitte looks to grow its advisory business.

Private equity firms are hiring

83% of private equity firms globally intend to increase headcount next year, with Asian and US firms doing most of the heavy lifting.

Regulators need cyber security pros

US government agencies are hiring information-technology experts to help analyze whether banks are well equipped to handle cyber attacks, like the one aimed at JPMorgan earlier this year.

Barclays eyeing Asian resurgence

While mostly firing in the West, Barclays is doing plenty of hiring in the East. It has added 11 people to its Japanese equity sales and trading team since July and plans to hire at least four more by the end of the year.

JPM going long on big data

J.P. Morgan continues to grow its data and analytics business. It just hired former Nasdaq exec Lucien Foster as a director within its aptly-named Intelligent Solutions unit.

Deloitte adding in advisory

Deloitte is looking to launch a ’boutique’ equity capital markets business after regaining its status as a ‘sponsor’ that helps coordinate initial public offerings.

JPM eyes African expansion

JPMorgan is hoping to open an office in Kenya while it continues to expand its business across Africa generally. The US bank currently employs 150 staffers in South Africa and operates out of Nigeria.

CMBS market heating up

Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and other firms are ramping up activity in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market in Europe. Hiring is likely to follow or is already underway.

HSBC ramping up in Singapore

HSBC is growing its retail banking and wealth management business in Singapore. The UK bank just opened its 12th retail outlet there.

Fresh firms hiring in London

Here’s a breakdown of the hot new hedge fund and private equity fund firms that have launched in London over the past month. They may be building their teams.

BNY adding private wealth managers in Hong Kong

BNY Mellon launched a new wealth management practice in Hong Kong last month. It’s not near done staffing up.

It used to be like coffee and tea, or Marmite and jam – you were either a hedge fund person or a private equity person. You weren’t both, unless you were some kind of aberration. Now, however, the HF/PE demarcation has been blurred: one super-senior headhunter in London informs us that two of his hedge fund clients are trying to poach from private equity funds.

“It might not be a new trend, but it is historically unusual and there are two instances of it,” he discloses, speaking entirely off the record. “These are hedge funds which are looking for equity portfolio managers and analysts to invest in publicly listed equities. However, they have a more private equity-style of investing.”

What is a ‘private equity style of investing’? “My clients are taking very large stakes in publicly listed companies and are planning to hold them for a long period of time,” the headhunter says. “They need people with a private equity skill-set – who can tear a company apart and really get to grips with what’s going on under the bonnet before they invest.”

This sounds like good news for private equity professionals, who now have two popular buy-side careers to choose from. It’s bad news, though, for equities traders from banks, who’ve slipped off the hiring radar as far as hedge funds are concerned: “Hedge funds aren’t really interested in hiring from banks,” says the headhunter. “They’d much rather hire from each other – or private equity.”

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Shanghai has managed to generate the kind of headlines in recent weeks that seem to support its ultimate ambition to become a global financial centre by 2020. The launch of Stock Connect in mid-November was followed by proposals to reform the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and introduce deposit insurance for banks. Hong Kong, meanwhile, is losing its position as China’s sole “international agent” city, and Shanghai and Hong Kong were rated in equal fifth place in a recent global ranking of financial centres.

Despite such signs of convergence, however, the finance-sector careers on offer in the two cities remain markedly different, and relatively few banking candidates are moving between Hong Kong and Shanghai (and vice versa), say recruiters in the region Share on twitter. Mainland-based M&A bankers (with cross-border experience) hired into Hong Kong roles provide a notable, but niche, exception.

“As Shanghai is a more China-focused market, it is more inwardly looking, which leads to a lower number of expatriate professionals working there,” says John Mullally, associate director, financial services, at Robert Walters in Hong Kong. “The level of sophistication of some roles in Shanghai is also not as sophisticated as in Hong Kong. Although a lot of the deals are closer to Shanghai now, Hong Kong still has more high-end, sophisticated jobs in the financial services industry.”

Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Norman Chan Tak-lam has also recently highlighted the differences between the two markets. “Hong Kong and Shanghai are serving different customers,” he said, quoted in the South China Morning Post. “The growth of Shanghai trade and financial businesses could also help Hong Kong growth as long as our companies can offer the services and products to capture the opportunities.”

Meanwhile:

Standard Chartered is considering replacing its banking advisers, UBS and JPMorgan. (Today)

Ping An deal shakes up bank league tables. (Finance Asia)

SGX to set up Asian bond trading platform. (Business Times)

South Korea launches yuan-won market in Seoul. (South China Morning Post)

How Australian banks are resisting change. (Sydney Morning Herald)

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We’ve been reporting on skill shortages in Asian financial services throughout this year – compliance, risk and relationship management are among the job functions currently suffering from them. But there’s another, more niche, part of the Asian finance sector where the talent base also appears to need urgent development: the C-suite.

Singapore and Hong Kong don’t currently have enough budding leaders to ensure they can continue to thrive as financial centres Share on twitter in the near future, say two academics from the National University of Singapore Business School. Professor Bernard Yeung, the school’s dean, and Professor Joseph Cherian, director of its Centre for Asset Management Research and Investments, are trying to tackle the problem.

Last month they helped NUS Business School launch a new course – Asia Leaders in Financial Institutions – aimed at senior directors, executive vice presidents and managing directors with their eyes on C-level jobs. The programme, which at US$31,030 costs significantly less than an elite MBA, will train these rather senior students in subjects such as change management in turbulent times; enterprise-wide risk avoidance and mitigation; managing and delivering cutting-edge financial technology; and charismatic leadership.

As well as being taught by NUS faculty members, the course features guest contributions from the likes of K. Vaman Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank, and Masaaki Shirakawa, the former Governor of the Bank of Japan. It kicks off with a five-day stint in Singapore in September next year, followed by sessions in Mumbai, Beijing and New York (of three days each) between December 2015 and April 2016, and a final one in Singapore in June 2016.

We asked professors Yeung and Cherian why they think Asian financial services needs better leaders.

Why set up this programme?

Professor Bernard Yeung: We both believe that financial and capital markets are the CPU of Asia’s economy and its recent economic renaissance, which makes it crucial that we build future leaders for the industry. We want to create a leadership voice of financial professionals who can help put an Asian signature on the global financial landscape. There’s really no credible, successful programme that does this yet.

Professor Joseph Cherian: There is still a comparative lack of strong senior Asian voices, not just in financial institutions but also within financial regulators. As Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai – and hopefully Mumbai, too – become more successful as financial centres they will need locally-developed leaders who understand Asian cultures and Asian regulatory regimes.

But banks in Asia already run their own leadership-training programmes. Why attend an external course?

JC: I used to work at Credit Suisse in New York – the training sessions there were good, but they were naturally inward looking. We want to expose high-flyers to the latest thinking in leadership in finance, no matter where it comes from.

BY: Without this course it would be hard to get exposed to ideas from, for example, five CEOs all sitting together in one room – plus the networking opportunities in that are huge. If we really want to groom tomorrow’s leaders, we have to have multiple mind-sets across multiple locations feeding into their development, so they’re not just exposed to the leadership culture of a single firm.

What are the unique aspects of financial-sector leadership in Asia?

BY: The talent pool of financial professionals is still thinner in Singapore and Hong Kong than in Western markets like London and New York – and that makes a difference to you as a leader. Talent shortages mean that having the ability to mentor and develop people internally is a more crucial aspect of leadership in Asia. Having the ‘personal touch’ is very important when a leader mentors their staff – in Asia you need to really understand what motivates your employees and treat them with respect. Good leaders in Asia know the importance of aligning their employees’ long-term personal objectives with the company’s objectives.

JC: Differences in the structure of our domestic financial institutions also affect leadership. As a rule, family-owned firms, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds are more important to the financial industry in Asia than they are in the West. These firms have a different business and leadership focus than, for example, the global banks – more long term and less quarter to quarter. The nature of your clients can be different too – you’re more likely to deal with dominant owners and families. Government relationships with the finance sector are more intertwined in Asia and you generally need to show the government more respect as a leader. In summary, leadership is more long term and more relationship driven on a number of levels. In the future I also think Asia will develop more of its own model of financial regulations – strong leadership will become more important in this context too.

How to you actually teach these aspects of Asian leadership?

BY: The course is taught by successful financial leaders – like CEOs who have led their firm through the financial crisis – who can provide real-life case studies, allowing students to learn through an ‘osmosis of ideas’. It’s primarily based in Singapore because that’s the city that best reflects Asia’s diversity – we have so many experts from across the region working here.

JC: We’re also taking the participants to Mumbai, Beijing and New York, where they will meet leading academics, central bank governors, presidents and Nobel Prize winners. These sessions will be more like interactive round-table discussions and less like lectures. There will be case studies, simulations, role playing and exercises on financial leadership, and dialogue sessions, site visits, experiential learning and networking with successful leaders. Participants are also expected to complete an on-the-job assignment in finance and a capstone team project.

How will participants fit the course into their busy work schedules?

BY: We’ve spaced out the stints in various cities. But in between students remain connected with each other and have assignments – this is actually good practice for being a CEO, when you have to adjust your work patterns and have to spend more time studying things strategically.

What’s interest been like in the course so far?

BY: It’s just been launched and doesn’t start until September 2015, but we’ve already received a number of enquiries. Mostly I think it will be CEOs recommending people under them to do the course – companies have already shown they’re willing to support the programme. It’s a highly selective course aimed at ‘C-level minus one’ people, but we take people not just from investment banks, but from across the finance sector – from regulators, from pension funds, from the buy-side.

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