Peter Stein, a veteran of the Wall Street Journal in Asia, has jumped from the sinking ship of journalism over to the far more venerable banking industry and joined UBS as head of group governmental affairs for Asia-Pacific.
Well, perhaps neither industry is sailing through public opinion unscathed and retaining staffing levels of previous boom years, but Stein is definitely a good catch for a bank looking to hire an Asia hand with long-standing contacts.
Stein, who started on January 3, is based in Hong Kong and reports to Asia-Pacific group co-CEOs Chi-won Yoon and Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, and Steve Hottiger, the head of group governmental affairs.
His role will be to work with senior UBS management in Asia to provide guidance and analysis on policy, regulatory and political trends in the region that will affect the bank’s decisions across Asia-Pacific. This policy-wonk analytical role, suits a journalist well — particularly one such as Stein who has spent years studying the ins and outs of political decisions in the region.
Stein joined The Asian Wall Street Journal in 1989. He became managing editor in 1998 and then in 2005 was appointed both Hong Kong Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal and the associate editor of its Asian edition, leading a team of journalists who covered finance, markets and Asia-wide economic and corporate trends.
“I’ll be working to make sure we have the right lines of communication open with regulators,” said Stein, noting that he won’t be acting as a lobbyist or a corporate communications person on behalf of the bank.
Stein, a Yale graduate, first came out to China in 1986, joining a fellowship programme with the Yale-China Association in Wuhan, teaching English at Huazhong Normal University. He also studied Chinese at the university with a private tutor during that time. He has since learnt Cantonese as well, giving him the language skills to build relationships with key sources first in journalism and now, no doubt, in banking as well.
“This was just a great opportunity that presented itself and it struck me as a way to leverage my experience and contacts in the region and to further make use of my background,” said Stein.
