The Master in Finance cohort at ESSEC Business School, Asia-Pacific (APAC) set foot in a number of top financial institutions in Singapore between 20 and 21 November 2019.
The first stop in Day 1 was Bloomberg where we gleaned insights into the industry’s current developments, emerging trends and changing needs on how information can be delivered. The next stop was Amundi – Europe’s largest asset manager and one of the top 10 biggest investment managers in the world. We were privileged to meet its Chief Operating Officer of South Asia, Ms Michelle Ang, who shared with us the strategic importance of Amundi’s Singapore office. We also enhanced our understanding of wealth management business from Mr David Poh, Head of Investments. CEO of Amundi Intermediation Asia, Mr David Logerais, also shared with us the firm’s execution services and showed us its trading floor.
Our last stop for the day was Ardian Investment Singapore. The French biggest private market investor group presented on private equity industry and funds. We had an interesting discussion with Mr Won Ha, Head of Singapore & Korea, and their analysts on its core business lines and networks with the world’s largest private equity managers such as KKR and Carlyle. The discussion extended to topics such as a potential bubble in the private market, double layer fee structure of funds and the advantages of secondaries transactions. Our very fruitful first day of the finance trek ended with a networking session with the whole team at Ardian.2 saw us visiting Société Générale, where we had the honor to meet Mr Pascal Lambert, Group Country Head for Singapore and Head of South East Asia and India. A finance alumnus of ESSEC, he shared with us the growth of Société Générale in Asia and emphasized the importance of asset-based financing activities in the region. Mr David So, Director for Debt Capital Markets, also shared with us on Global Capital Market and the division’s product offerings. The company visit ended with a talk on derivatives, hedging solutions and cross-asset investing by Mr Edward Lee, Managing Director and Head of Global Markets Sales (SEA & India) & ESG Ambassador (Asia).
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Our next visit was the private banking division of UOB – one of Southeast Asia’s three largest banks. We attended an insightful presentation on global economy and learnt about the popular UOB Management Associate (MA) program. Mr Francis Tan, Investment strategist of UOB Private Bank, spoke about private banking and various trends in the global economy.
The finale was the Fintech Forum chaired by industry heavyweight and ESSEC alumnus, Mr Remi Provendier, who heads the Fintech Business Development division at Mastercard Asia. He touched on the future of digital payments and how Mastercard was evolving to better support Fintech innovations on a global scale. He emphasized that Fintech was changing the whole ecosystem, and Singapore has strategically positioned itself to benefit from Fintech development. Illustrating how “Singapore is the right place to work for Fintech”, he highlighted to us the scale and clout of the Singapore FinTech Festival, which is the world’s largest FinTech festival and global platform for the FinTech community to connect with one another.
Through this finance trek organized by ESSEC APAC’s Career Services Team, we gained valuable insights and meaningful connections with leading experts in the finance industry. We learned so much about the different aspects of finance and how being in Singapore is vital to starting a career in this industry.
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