EVEN BEFORE THE global financial crisis hit home, the world’s top investment banks were looking east. The pecking order in the world’s developed markets is more or less set, and winning market share in them is expensive, time-consuming and difficult. Now that the crisis has hit those developed markets hard, opportunities are even scarcer, leaving Asia as the region offering the best opportunities for growth over the next 10 years. Investment banks know this, and are hiring aggressively in Asia as they try to fill holes in their regional platforms.