BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Powell Cappel

Mr Cappel is currently an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches courses in Securities Valuation, Portfolio Management and International Finance. He previously worked as a structurer/trader in the Asian fixed income markets for both Barclays Capital and UBS. He started his career in Hong Kong as a credit analyst and, later, managed credit risk for North Asian markets at Credit Suisse First Boston. He currently serves as President Commissioner of PT. Mowilex in Jakarta.

Mr Cappel holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tony Watson

Mr. Watson is currently a Portfolio Manager and Responsible Officer (Type 9) at Far East Investment Management (Hong Kong) Ltd. He previously worked at LIM Advisors Limited (Asia’s oldest surviving hedge fund). There he was Senior Portfolio Manager (Asia ex-Japan High Yield), SFC Responsible Officer (Type 9) and a director on the board of  their Asia Multi Strategy Fund at the time of his 2015 departure. He joined LIM in 2008 after leaving Morgan Stanley as Head of Debt Research (Asia ex-Japan). As a publishing analyst Tony variously covered industrial, mining and infrastructure debt issuers at ING-Barings in Hong Kong (2000-04) and ABN Amro–Hoare Govett in Singapore (1997-00). He was regularly ranked by Asiamoney, FinanceAsia and The Asset as one of Asia (ex-Japan)’s top 10 publishing credit analysts between 2001 and 2007. His first roles in Asia were as a Thomson Bankwatch ratings analyst in Hong Kong (1995-97) and an intern at Royal Bank of Canada’s Singapore branch in 1994.

From 2010 to 2020 Tony volunteered as a director on the CFA Society Hong Kong board, serving his final two years as its President. He was named the CFA Institute’s 2015 Volunteer of the Year and awarded their 30-year Continuing Education Milestone in 2022.

A CFA charterholder, Tony holds an MBA from University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School and a BBA from St. Francis Xavier University.

Brett Williams

Mr Williams has twenty-plus years of experience in Asia’s capital markets, predominantly in a research capacity within rating agency, investment bank, and brokerage settings. From pre-Asian Crisis roles at rating agencies Capital Intelligence and Thomson BankWatch, he leveraged his on-the-ground experience in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong into publishing research and investment recommendations geared to Trading, Sales, and Private Bank clients. He has held both buy- and sell-side fixed income research roles at Credit Suisse First Boston, ING Financial Markets, BNP Paribas, where he became Head of Credit Research. He later augmented his research experience with credit sales roles at BNP Paribas and Vantage Capital Markets.

Mr Williams holds Finance and Economics degrees from the University of South Carolina (USA).