Jimmy Lee Kong Eng is on the prowl. The new head of Asia for private bank Clariden Leu, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group, wants to hire as many senior relationship managers as possible to meet growing demand. “If we find five highly qualified senior relationship managers, we’ll take five,” says Lee, 47, who is based in Singapore and currently oversees 120 staffers in Asia. “If we can find 30, we’ll take 30.”
Stock markets have come roaring back to life in Asia, and the region’s wealthy investors are turning to the Swiss private bank in record numbers, explains Lee, who joined Clariden Leu in June from Deutsche Bank, where he was head of private wealth management for Southeast Asia. Clariden Leu, with assets of Sf94 billion ($87.7 billion), was formed in 2007, when Credit Suisse merged its five separate private banks.
