Daily Dispatches: Singaporean finance professionals get a leg up; Formula One’s IPO takes flight

The Singapore government has announced a slew of programmes to better develop Singaporeans into finance chiefs. These include raising the employment pass standards of foreigners to manage the growth of the expat workforce and the provision of scholarships for young professionals. (The Straits Times) Formula One has been given the go ahead for a US$2.5bn share [...]

Or how about Singapore?

The Runaway MBA: Choosing between Singapore and Hong Kong is overwhelmingly complicated

Before I begin, I can already hear the choir singing, “that dumb ignorant American”. But coming from the US, how do you distinguish between Singapore and Hong Kong? They both sound equally exciting. How do you choose where to focus your time and effort when networking? If you’re a Singapore or Hong Kong local, can [...]

Introducing the risk adverse executive

Investor protests aside, here’s another very persuasive argument against generous banker pay

Executive pay isn’t all that it’s cut out to be, if a recent joint study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the London School of Economics is anything to go by. Making executive pay work: The psychology of incentives, surveyed 1,106 executives across 43 countries. Ironically it found that highly complex compensation packages with deferred bonuses – beloved [...]

Daily Dispatches: Experienced bankers wanted at Coutts

Coutts is keen on recruiting senior directors in Asia, Middle East, UK, Eastern Europe and Switzerland. The firm has ramped up headcount in this area by a third since January this year. It’s also hired about 20 new senior executives, with about another 10 starting work soon. The bulk of the hires hail from Credit [...]

Hire Me!

10 tips for getting hired when nobody seems to be hiring

For anyone who has been searching for a financial job for more than a few weeks, the dreary and continued drain on time, effort, energy and spirit make it sometimes difficult to stay with it. You begin to wonder if you’ll ever get a job. Is anyone even hiring? To break the spell, there are [...]

Oh the shame

Lessons on the dark art of CV manipulation from former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson

Here’s a career lesson that you can take from Scott Thompson, Yahoo’s former chief executive of less than six months – never lie on your CV. It’s unethical and could spell career suicide if you get found out.Unfortunately, Thompson learnt this the hard way. First, he claimed to be unaware of a non-existent computer science [...]

Daily Dispatches: Rich Americans are being given the cold shoulder in Asia

HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Singapore and DBS have all turned away wealthy American clients ahead of the “draconian” Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Tan Su Shan, head of private banking at DBS, says: “I don’t open US accounts, period.” (Bloomberg Businessweek) “Japan’s mega-banks have lumbered off their home territory to pick up some of [...]

It's about to get very local in here

Expats bid farewell to top jobs at the big four audit firms in China

Talent localisation in China has been given a boost with the recent regulatory changes announced by the Ministry of Finance last week. By the end of this year, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers – which operate as joint ventures on the mainland – have to hand over control of their operations to their [...]

Daily Dispatches: Suitors galore for BofA’s private banking assets; Credit Suisse loses top banker to Temasek

The Royal Bank of Canada, Credit Suisse and Julius Baer are all keen on buying Bank of America’s non-US wealth management business.(Reuters) The global head of Credit Suisse’s mergers business, Boon Sim, has left to head up the North American operations of Singapore-based investment firm Temasek Holdings. (The Wall Street Journal) The new owner of [...]

Befriend these people (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Goldman’s global head of growth markets succinctly explains how investment bankers can ensure they’re never without work in future

Goldman Sachs has been making videos and placing them on YouTube. They don’t appear particularly popular: some only have a handful of hits.  Some appear to have none at all. However, this one, featuring J. Michael Evans, its global head of ‘Growth Markets’, deserves some attention. In it, J. Michael volunteers a perspective on what [...]