Six hired for Bank of America's GTS team

Bank of America’s global treasury services yesterday announced six senior hires in Asia reflecting the bank’s expansion within the region.

The bank said in a statement that Zhongmin Zha was appointed head of its financial institutions (FI) business for global treasury services (GTS) in China. Based in Beijing, Zha reports to Subin Subaiah, head of financial institutions, GTS Asia. He wll be responsible for cash management, trade finance, foreign exchange, short-term credit facilities and short-term investing.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Zha held various senior roles at the Bank of China, China CITIC Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. He is a recognised expert on forfaiting, and has published several articles and a book on the subject. He is a chartered member of the Asian Advisory Council of the Institute of International Banking Law & Practice in the United States and is the director in charge of market practice of the North and East Asia Regional Committee of International Forfaiting Association.

In a separate statement, the bank said it was adding five vice presidents in the region, namely Jitendra Rawat, Dhiraj Bajaj and Deepak Varadarajan in India, Kittie Yu in China, and Margaret Chou in Taiwan. The bank says these are new positions.

Richard Brown, head of global treasury services for Asia, says the bank’s treasury business in the region is growing rapidly. “So we have created many new positions in cash management and supply chain solutions.”

Jitendra Rawat and Deepak Varadarajan are responsible for servicing the bank’s multinational clients in Mumbai and Bangalore, respectively. Rawat joined Bank of America after six years at BNP Paribas as a product/relationship manager, while Varadarajan comes with nine years of banking experience gathered from stints at HSBC, Citi and ING. His last position was as assistant vice president in charge of the SME product function. Both will report to Kuresh Sarjan, senior vice president and head of GTS in India.

Dhiraj Bajaj will service the bank’s financial institutions clients in Mumbai. Prior to joining Bank of America, he spent eight years at Citi and HSBC. His last position was as senior product manager and head of liquidity management with the global payments and cash management team at HSBC. He will report to Rajeev Bhargava, senior vice president, financial institutions, India.

Kittie Yu has over 10 years of banking experience with ANZ and DBS. Her most recent position was senior relationship manager at DBS, where she was responsible for general industry and trading portfolio. She is based in Shanghai and reports to Jonathan Jiang, vice president, global trade solutions, Asia.