BrazilDuff & Phelps promotes three managing directors in China and Japan
Global advisory Duff & Phelps has made 22 managing director promotions worldwide, including three among its Asian offices.
A player in the valuations, risk, regulatory, corporate finance, M&A, and disputes and investigations space, Duff & Phelps has some 3,500 employees spread across scores of offices in 28 countries worldwide – including ten located in East and Southeast Asia. Two of these, Tokyo and Shanghai, have last month welcomed three new managing directors, among the firm’s 22 global senior promotions.
Named as the head of Business Intelligence and Investigations in Tokyo last year – which operates under the Kroll brand – Hiroki Katayama has now been elevated to Duff & Phelps managing director, alongside fellow Tokyo promotion Katsumi Asai who is part of the firm’s valuation advisory business. The two join Atsuo Watanabe, an existing managing director in the firm’s local Investment Banking practice.
Meanwhile, in Shanghai, Sarah Zheng of the Intelligence & Investigations practice has also been made managing partner, the move following the firm’s acquisition of restructuring, insolvency, litigation and forensic accounting firm Zolfo Cooper Asia earlier this year (ZC’s US and European operations were previously plucked by AlixPartners) – which saw founder and former FTI Consulting senior director and Baker Tilly partner Bruno Arboit join as a managing director in Hong Kong.
A risk management, valuation, due diligence and compliance senior professional with a Big Four and international risk consultancy background prior to joining Kroll, Hiroki Katayama holds expertise in among other areas financial and M&A due diligence, corporate governance, and reviews of internal controls and remediation – responsible for and having led and coordinated a range of complex compliance-related engagements.
Katsumi Asai has more than a decade of experience business enterprise valuations, exchange ratios, valuations of goodwill and intellectual properties and other related issues, with expertise in valuation of both minority and controlling interests in closely-held companies for the purposes of acquisition and divestiture pricing, tax planning and financing. Previously, Asai was with former PwC affiliate MISUZU, and earlier worked for Arthur Andersen.
With Kroll for the past five years, after crossing from a five-year Vice President stint at Gerson Lehrman Group (a firm which connects business clients with independent expert consultants), Sarah Zheng has altogether more than 15 years of professional experience with high-profile multinational companies, financial services, management consulting and investment firms. She specializes in due diligence, business intelligence, litigation support and fraud investigation cases in China and internationally.
Duff & Phelps and its Kroll division have a professional headcount of 300 across its Greater China locations (Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taipei and Hong Kong), but recently lost former managing director Steven Parker from its Hong Kong office to rival Berkeley Research Group. Including its other Asian regional offices in India, Vietnam and Singapore, Duff & Phelps has around 30 managing directors.
