Wei Sun Christianson: The right person in the right place

IN ADDITION

Fifty years of Asia The profiles: 23 of the biggest names in Asia Zafrul Aziz Laura Cha Piyush Gupta Uday Kotak Reuben Lai Boon Chye Loh Agus Martowardojo Raghuram Rajan Jahja Setiaatmadja Weijian Shan Alan Smith Teh Hong Piow Tian Huiyu Sun Yu Nestor Tan Wee Ee Cheong Kartika Wirjoatmodjo Peter Wong Daniel Wu Wu Wei Joseph Yam Zeti Akhtar Aziz

Few people illustrate the rise of China in global investment banking better than Wei Sun Christianson. Born in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, she elevated herself through education. She became the first mainland Chinese student ever to graduate from Amherst College, went to Columbia Law School and took Hong Kong by storm after moving there in 1992. Today she is Morgan Stanley’s China chief executive and Asia Pacific co-chief executive.

As a mainland woman in a male-dominated profession, everyone in banking knows her, but not everyone knows she was involved in setting up the regulatory structure for Chinese companies to be listed in Hong Kong while working at the Securities and Futures Commission, reporting to Laura Cha.