New faces, old faces: Asia PE people moves

LIMITED PARTNERS

ABU DHABI INVESTMENT AUTHORITY Kabir Mathur, formerly of KKR and TPG Capital, becomes head of private equity investments in India and Southeast Asia

ARDIAN Kanji Takenaka, previously a principal at HarbourVest Partners, is appointed managing director and head of Japan, with a brief to lead the firm’s newly-opened Japan office. A Korea base also opens, with Won Ha relocating from Singapore – where he served as a member of the fund-of-funds and investor relations teams – to head up operations

CALIFORNIA PUBLIC EMPLOYEES’ RETIREMENT SYSTEM Yu Ben Meng, who has spent the last three years as deputy CIO of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) becomes the pension fund’s new CIO. Before joining SAFE, he spent seven years with CalPERS

CANADA PENSION PLAN INVESTMENT BOARD Suyi Kim is promoted to the role of senior managing director and head of Asia Pacific, having assumed responsibility for Asia investments outside of Australia in 2016. Deborah Orida, who succeeded Kim as head of Asian private equity, becomes global head of active equities. Shane Feeney, the pension fund’s global private investments head, takes on the global head of private equity brief, which includes oversight of the Asian PE portfolio

EMPLOYEES PROVIDENT FUND Tunku Alizakri Alias, the fund’s deputy CEO since 2014, is promoted to CEO. He replaces Shahril Ridza Ridzuan, who moves to Khazanah Nasional

FRANKLIN TEMPLETON Arthur Wang, previously a managing director for private markets at San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System, becomes head of Franklin Templeton Private Equity. The new firm is a joint venture with Asia Alternatives that provides bespoke global private equity fund-of-funds solutions

FUTURE FUND Head of private equity Steve Byrom and two of his three most senior team members – David Simons and Jasmina Osmanovic – depart to launch Potentum Partners, an independent consulting firm that will advise global institutional investors looking to build exposure to the asset class. The superannuation fund said the five other members of the PE team would remain in place

HARBOURVEST PARTNERS Till Burges, who covers primary investments out of the firm’s Hong Kong office, is promoted to managing director

HESTA Andrew Major, general manager for unlisted assets, becomes chairperson of the Australian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (AVCAL). He is the first member of the local institutional investor community to serve in this role

KHAZANAH NASIONAL Shahril Ridza Ridzuan, CEO of Employees Provident Fund, is named managing director in place of Azman Mokhtar. This comes after the entire Khazanah board tenders its resignation as the government investigates corruption in state investment programs. Four other new directors are appointed, including Sukhdave Singh, chairman for the private equity arm of Maybank, and Azmin Ali, the minister of economic affairs

NATIONAL PENSION SERVICE Hyo-Joon Ahn is named CIO, following a long struggle to find a permanent occupant for the role. He previously worked for NPS between 2011 and 2013, serving as head of domestic equities, and then entered the private sector. He was most recently head of BNK Financial Group. Earlier in the year, In-Sik Cho, the pension fund’s former global public markets head, resigned as acting CIO and was replaced by Soo-Cheol Lee, who leads investment strategy

NEW ZEALAND SUPERANNUATION FUND Matt Whineray, who joined in 2008 as general private markets and most recently served as CIO, is promoted to CEO

PANTHEON Alex Wilmerding, who is responsible for client relationships across Asia Pacific and also sits on the regional investment team, is promoted to partner. Akitoshi Yamada joins from Nippon Life as a managing director and head of Japan, leading a three-person team in the firm’s newly-opened Tokyo office

 

GENERAL PARTNERS

ABRAAJ GROUP Asia head Omar Lodhi becomes co-CEO of the fund management business alongside Selcuk Yorgancioglu after founder Arif Naqvi steps back amidst a governance scandal. The firm releases LPs from their commitments to its latest flagship funds and then – with creditors filing petitions to recover unpaid debts – appoints provisional liquidators to work on a restructuring

ACTIS Ellen Li, formerly of Janus Henderson Global Investors, is hired as a managing director and head of the investor development group in Asia

ADVANTAGE PARTNERS Hideyuki Inokuma steps down as chief administrative officer. His investor relations duties pass to Katsuya Baba, a partner with the firm

AFFIN HWANG ASSET MANAGEMENT Johan Rozali-Wathooth, a deputy managing director, becomes managing partner of newly-launched Bintang Capital Partners. Poh Lean, Theresa Lim, and Andrew Tan, all former M&A professionals at RHB Investment Bank, also join the team

AGIC CAPITAL Sam Breuning joins from Equistone Partners Europe as partner and head of the UK. He leads the newly-opened London office

ANDREESSEN HOROWITZ Connie Chang, the executive responsible for the US venture capital firm’s Asian network, is promoted to general partner. She is only the second woman in the role partner in Andreessen Horowitz’s history and the first to be promoted to that position from within the firm

APOLLO GLOBAL MANAGEMENT India head Mintoo Bhandari scales back his involvement to focus on social impact investing. He is succeeded by Utsav Baijal – a partner at Apollo and at Aion Capital Partners – who shares leadership duties with Parth Gandhi and Kalpesh Kikani

ASCENDENT CAPITAL PARTNERS Kevin Zhang, one of the two co-founders of Chinese middle market private equity firm, retires to establish his own family office

BGH CAPITAL The Australia and New Zealand-focused private equity firm set up by former TPG Capital Asia co-head Ben Gray, hires Jonathan Chamberlain, a managing director at The Blackstone Group, as a partner

THE BLACKSTONE GROUP Tony James, the firm’s president and COO, hands over day-to-day management duties to global real estate head Jon Gray as part of a succession planning strategy. He continues in a full-time role as executive vice chairman, reporting to Stephen Schwarzman, the firm’s co-founder, chairman and CEO

BRAND CAPITAL The investment arm of India’s Times Group names Sam Subramaniam as its CEO. A career investment banker, he most recently served as founder of Sprout Growth Advisors

THE CARLYLE GROUP David Bluff, head of the buyout team in Australia and New Zealand, is promoted from managing director to partner. Tomofumi Matsuyama joins from Morgan Stanley as a managing director in the Japan buyout team, while Wanlian Liu is hired from Goldman Sachs to lead growth investments in China. In Southeast Asia, Robby Winarta is recruited in Indonesia as a managing director and Long Hoang joins as a director in Vietnam. Devinjit Singh, a managing director in India, leaves the firm with Vikram Nirula brought in from True North at the same level. Honjiang Zhang, who stepped down as CEO of Kingsoft in 2016, is recruited as a senior advisor to the Asian private equity business

CHAMP PRIVATE EQUITY Managing Director Fiona Lock joins Pepperstone, a foreign exchange broker backed by the Australian GP, after participating in a buyout led by the company’s founders and management. She continues to be involved with certain CHAMP portfolio companies and prospective new investments, but no longer a full-time capacity

CRESCENT CAPITAL PARTNERS Partners Tim Martin and Chris Yoo depart the Australian GP. Yoo joins two former Crescent colleagues at consultancy Genesis Advisory

CVC CAPITAL PARTNERS Nobuaki Kurumatani, steps down as Japan president after less than a year in the role to become chairman and CEO of Toshiba Corporation

EIGHT ROADS VENTURES The investment arm of Fidelity International hires Shweta Bhatia, formerly of Goldman Sachs, joins as a partner based in India

EQUIS GROUP Mark Weaver is recruited as a partner, having previously led natural resources investments at the UTIMCO, which is an LP and advisory board member at Equis. Damian Secen, formerly a senior managing director at Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, joins as a partner

EVERSTONE GROUP Sanjay Gujral, who left the firm in 2011 for L Catterton Asia, rejoins as COO. He takes over from Sanjoy Chatterjee, now global head of business development and president of Everstone’s North American operations. This is part of a wider reorganization of the firm’s global fundraising operation, which includes the appointment of business development heads for the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East and Asia Pacific. It follows the departure Atul Phull, a managing director responsible for investor relations

GOBI PARTNERS Dan Chong is named COO for ASEAN, while Khairul Khairi joins as a partner for the firm’s ASEAN growth fund and Shannon Kalayanamitr is hired as a venture partner for the newly-launched Thailand vehicle

INTERMEDIATE CAPITAL GROUP Chris Heine, head of Asia Pacific, announces his retirement – and Ryan Shelswell, who leads investment activities in Australia and New Zealand is primed to take over – but then delays his exit. Escamillo Lin, formerly of CDH Investments, joins as managing director and head of Southeast Asia for private equity and mezzanine

JENERATION CAPITAL Jason Tan, formerly a global partner at Tiger Global Management, joins as a partner and CIO

KKR Kazuyuki Kido joins as a managing director in Japan from Simplex Holdings, where he led the operations group. He previously spent 20 years at SMBC Nikko Securities and Nikko Principal Investments

MBK PARTNERS Bryan Byungsuk Min, who has been with the firm since 2005, is promoted from COO to partner

MONK’S HILL VENTURES Mohd Ridzwan (Reez) Nordin joins as a Malaysia-based venture partner to help companies with recruitment and expansion. He was previously part of the tech investment team at Khazanah Nasional

MULTIPLES ALTERNATIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT Prakash Nene, a managing director and CFO, resigns for personal reasons

PACIFIC EQUITY PARTNERS Paul McCullagh becomes the first of the Australia-based firm’s four founders to step back, swapping his managing director position for a senior advisor role

SEA Nick Nash steps down as group president of Singapore-headquartered mobile internet and gaming platform to launch his own regional venture capital firm

SEQUOIA CAPITAL Abhay Pandey and V.T. Bharadwaj, both India-based managing director, leave to establish A91 Partners

SHUNWEI CAPITAL PARTNERS Chris Lai, formerly a venture partner at China-focused Sinovation Ventures, joins as a partner

TPG CAPITAL Shailesh Rao, a former executive at Twitter and Google, is named head of India and Southeast Asia for TPG Growth. He also leads The Rise Fund, TPG’s impact investment vehicle, in these geographies. Malcolm Jackson is hired from The Blackstone Group as a managing director in the Australia and New Zealand private equit

WARBURG PINCUS India co-head Niten Malhan leaves to establish New Mark Advisors, while Nitin Nayar, a managing director with the firm, departs to form Filter Capital India

Y COMBINATOR Qi Lu, formerly group president and COO of Baidu, joins as founding CEO of the Silicon Valley-based seed-stage accelerator’s China branch, YC China

ZODIUS CAPITAL Varun Laul, the firm’s sole remaining India-based representative at Providence Equity Partners, joins as a managing director. He is responsible for the firm’s future funds; co-founder and CEO Neeraj Bhargava continues to manage existing funds

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