Morgan Stanley MD moves from London to Hong Kong for CIO role

Call it a shrewd pre-Brexit career move, but Simon Holden, a managing director and senior technologist at Morgan Stanley in London, has moved across to Asia to lead the bank’s IT.

Holden is now chief information officer for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, having relocated from the bank’s UK operation in May. He had been in various technology roles at the Morgan Stanley in London for nearly 18 years.

Holden was most recently programme manager for Morgan Stanley’s Pioneer project, which was a ‘front to back’ technology transformation project that started in 2012. Before this, he was head of cross-asset risk platforms, and from 2006-2011 he lead Morgan Stanley’s equity risk technology function.

Investment banks are fiercely competing for senior technology talent as they continue to try and gain an edge over their peers. In May, Mark Ashton-Rigby left J.P. Morgan, where he was CIO for the investment bank, and is set to join Barclays as group chief information officer in August.

J.P. Morgan promoted from within to replace Ashton-Rigby, appointing Lori Beer in June. Beer had been a managing director within J.P. Morgan’s global banking operations since 2014.

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