HKEX Taps SGX’s Exec to Grow Business in South Asia & Middle East

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) has appointed Narendra Hegde, the Director of International Sales for Asia at the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) Group, as its Head of Business Development in South Asia and the Middle East.

Hegde, an industry veteran with over 18 years of experience in sales and client services in the fintech industry, announced his appointment on Friday on LinkedIn.

The executive takes up the new role after almost 10 years at SGX Group, a securities and derivatives trading provider he joined in March 2013. At SGX, he spearheaded the market operator’s sales and marketing efforts to promote its business in South Asia and the Middle East. The goal, he noted, was to increase the group’s market shares and drive revenue growth for SGX's derivatives and cash markets.

A Look at Hegde's Career

Throughout a career span of close to two decades, Hegde has worked with top financial organizations such as the Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), Credit Suisse, UBS Investment Bank and Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of the software company, Oracle Corporation.

He worked at SMX for four years between March 2009 and February 2013, handling client services and onboarding. Earlier, he performed the same role at Credit Suisse where he worked between April 2008 and March 2009. At Credit Suisse, he helped to manage and track daily production issues, timely resolving them and communicating with clients.

Before Credit Suisse, Hegde was an Associate Consultant at UBS Investment Bank in Japan between February 2006 and April 2008. He similarly handled client onboarding and production support provision there, too. Hegde also worked as a Technical Support Engineer at Sun Microsystems and was part of the Global Communications support team that provided all-day-long production support.

Furthermore, between November 2004 and December 2005 Hedge worked as a Programmer at In-Solutions Global (ISG) Pvt. Limited. ISG is a financial technology service provider with operations across Africa, the Middle East, India and Australia.

Exec Moves in HKEX in 2022

HKEX is a global exchange that operates integrated financial markets in Asia and Europe. The Hong Kong-based company offers facilities for trading and clearing securities and derivatives in equities, commodities, fixed income and currency.

Since the start of 2022, HKEX has made several executive appointments to strengthen its position as Asia’s largest stock market operator. One of the most recent is the hiring of Daniel Sonder, the former Chief Financial Officer of B3, as its Chief Strategy Officer.

In June, Kian Hoe Tan, the former Managing Director and Head of Treasury Markets for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered, joined HKEX as the Managing Director and Head of Treasury. Earlier in March, the global exchange group rehired Yang Qiumei, who was previously the CEO of Asia Pacific at ICI Global, as the Managing Director and Advisor to the CEO.

At the start of the year, HKEX nominated Kerry Rooks, a former Chief Human Resources Officer at Prudential as its Chief People Officer.