Soofian Zuberi, the head of Asia-Pacific global market sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has been promoted to head of global equities distribution.
The new appointment, which will see him relocate to New York, comes just over three years after Zuberi switched his role as co-head of equity capital markets (ECM) in Asia for one overseeing the bank’s sales activities in the region across both equities and FICC. FICC includes fixed-income, currencies, commodities, rates, structured products and asset and liabilities structuring.
His new job will have him focus on equities, but being a global role it is a big step up for him. According to an internal announcement, he will be responsible for BoA Merrill’s equity sales teams globally and will ensure that the firm is “consistently delivering the best integrated offering to [its] clients around the world”.
Zuberi will work closely with the regional product heads and will oversee the client-facing activities across the firm’s three key products: cash, derivatives and financing. He will report to Fabrizio Gallo, who is global head of equities and head of global markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).
Zuberi, who is a managing director, has been with BoA Merrill and Merrill Lynch for 17 years, during which time he has “demonstrated a diverse set of strengths in client relationships, execution and management”, the announcement notes.
Colleagues describe him as a team player and he has a reputation for innovation and creative thinking as well as for being able to work well with almost everyone — a skill that has no doubt been useful in his current role, which involves getting the bank’s sales people to cooperate across product categories and asset classes. When he was appointed head of global market sales for the region in February 2009, shortly after Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America, it was the first time that Merrill had someone responsible for sales across both equities and fixed-income in Asia.
Before assuming the Asian sales job, Zuberi was co-head of Asia ECM together with Jason Cox for two years and before that he was in charge of Merrill’s ECM franchise in Southeast Asia. He has also held a variety of ECM roles in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, including head of Asia equity syndicate, and has worked extensively with both traditional and structured products. He began his career with the firm as a member of the corporate finance team in New York in 1993.
Zuberi, who is currently based in Hong Kong, will continue to oversee Asia-Pacific sales in the coming weeks as he prepares for his move to New York. According to a spokesperson, BoA Merrill hasn’t yet appointed a replacement for Zuberi as head of global market sales in the region.
