Maybank today announced the appointment of John Chong as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Maybank Investment Bank (Maybank IB) and Mohd Suhail Amar Suresh Abdullah as Executive Vice President & Head of Virtual Banking & Payments, Maybank.
John Chong, an experienced investment banker who has been with Maybank Group for 19 years, has also been concurrently appointed as Maybank Head of Investment Banking & Advisory for Malaysia operations. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) degree from the University of Queensland, Australia. Prior to the appointment, he was Managing Director and Head, Client Coverage for Maybank’s Global Wholesale Banking.
John Chong has been instrumental in building up Maybank Group’s Debt Capital Markets business in Malaysia and in expanding the reach of its Client Coverage team across the region. He will continue to lead the Client Coverage teams in addition to his new role.
Mohd Suhail was Managing Director of Malaysian Electronic Clearing Corporation Sdn Bhd (MyClear) prior to his appointment at Maybank. MyClear is a subsidiary of Bank Negara that took over the e-payment business of Malaysian Electronic Payment Sdn Bhd (MEPS) and is responsible for deploying e-payment infrastructure and services for the financial industry.
Mohd Suhail holds an MBA from Charles Sturt University Australia and had also served as the Group Managing Director of MEPS as well as in various other capacities in a number of multinational organisations and commercial bank.
Maybank President & CEO, Dato’ Sri Abdul Wahid Omar said the appointments were part of the continuous efforts to strengthen the Group’s leadership team with new additions and internal successions.
“These new appointees bring to the Group extensive management experience and expertise in key areas that will support our operations and vision to become a regional financial services leader,” he said.
He added that John Chong’s appointment was part of Maybank Kim Eng’s post-merger integration exercise that aims to build a leading regional investment bank. “We are making significant progress in the regionalisation of our Investment Banking business, having restructured our operations and strengthened the leadership team,” he said.
Over the past year, Maybank Kim Eng has welcomed several key additions including Giles Ong as the Regional Head of Investment Banking & Advisory, PK Basu as the Regional Head of Research & Economics, Alexander Panasko as the Maybank Kim Eng Group Chief Risk Officer and Warren Hua as the Regional Head of Advisory.
Dato Sri Wahid added that Suhail’s appointment would help accelerate the growth of Maybank’s virtual banking and e-payment businesses. “With over 25 years of experience covering Business Development, Marketing, IT, Systems & Applications and Strategy Development for e-Banking and e-Payment services, he will be responsible to drive innovation and implement initiatives that will entrench our leadership in these segments.”