ING announced that James Poon, currently Head of Diversified Corporates and Corporate Finance for Hong Kong and China, will additionally take on the role of Country Manager Hong Kong and China effective 1 July 2021. He will also be appointed Chief Executive of ING’s Hong Kong Branch pending regulatory approval.

James succeeds Aart Jan den Hartog who will leave ING on 30 June 2021 and return to Europe. James will report to Remko Witteveen, Head of Wholesale Banking Asia Pacific (a.i.) in his country manager role. The ING branch managers in Beijing and Shanghai, Yuan Yuan Liu and Annie Tao (a.i.) respectively, will in turn report to James from 1 July.

As country manager, James will be responsible for the strategy execution and performance of the wholesale banking business in Hong Kong and mainland China. James is a seasoned senior banker with more than 31 years of experience in corporate and investment banking and he spent 28 out of those 31 years at ING. As Head of Diversified Corporates and Corporate Finance, he covers a portfolio of top-tier Chinese SOE/POE clients, HK blue-chip companies, and multinational corporates.

He was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of Changsha City from 2017 to 2019; and an adjunct professor for a joint MBA in Finance program of Tsinghua University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for more than 15 years. James has a Ph.D. in Finance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.