BrazilA&M adds trio of directors to disputes team in Hong Kong
Global advisory Alvarez & Marsal has added three new senior directors to its Disputes & Investigations team in Asia: Irene Siu, Jacky Lo and Shannon Tong.
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has announced the appointment of three new senior directors to its Disputes & Investigations team in Asia – Irene Siu, Jacky Lo and Shannon Tong – with all three crossing from Ernst & Young over the past three months and to be based in Hong Kong. Together, they bring more than 60 years of professional experience in accounting and forensics to the firm.
The appointments follow closely on from A&M’s recruitment of forensics pioneer Chris Fordham as a managing director toward the end of last year, with Fordham having also spent a decade at EY prior to crossing. While the consulting industry at large is known for its high attrition rates, the investigations space in particular has been undergoing some movement, including that of close-knit teams.
One factor in the churn is the continued rise of Alvarez & Marsal (the firm recently celebrated hitting the 1,000 employee mark in Europe, and continues to expand its services in new geographies) along with similar rivals, which have built an especially strong reputation in certain specialist areas – driven in part by the recruitment of leading talent. EY seems to have been particularly hard hit, having also lost a number of forensics experts to FTI Consulting over the past twelve or so months.
A specialist in commercial fraud and corruption & bribery investigations, as well as in regulatory issues and providing accounting expert witness and litigation support, Irene Siu joins A&M after spending the past ten years at EY, most recently as an associate partner. Prior to EY, she was an associate director at Deloitte, before which she spent over a decade at RSM and PwC, the latter based out of Sydney.
Originally graduating with a degree in commerce from the University of New South Wales, Siu first joined the Sydney office of PwC in an accounting capacity in 1992, but has since developed wide expertise across the disputes & investigations space, including in disputes between shareholders and family members, loss of profit and income claims, money laundering, and asset and fund flow tracing.
Likewise most recently an associate partner at EY, Shannon Tong spent altogether ten and a half years at the Big Four firm, developing wide functional expertise in forensic accounting and litigation support in areas such as the investigation of transactions, business and share valuations, loss of profits calculations, and funds tracing. She holds a commerce bachelors from the Queensland University of Technology.
Also joining A&M as a senior director in Hong Kong, Jacky Lo was previously with EY for over twelve years, latterly as a director for forensic & integrity services. A biochemistry graduate from Imperial College London, Lo has assisted clients in a forensics capacity across numerous sectors, including in areas such as activist investor attacks, whistleblowing complaints, and shareholder disputes.
A&M also late last year added Tiffany Wong and Kitty Yeung to its restructuring team in Hong Kong, the latter joining from a career at EY, while elsewhere in the disputes and litigation space the firm has been busy making moves globally. This includes the recent appointment of Jerry Dent and Phil Beckett as the new practice heads for North America and Europe, and the expansion of capacities in China.
