AI Quant Director – APAC (Hong Kong)

Director – Global Markets AI

📍 Hong Kong | 💰 Highly Competitive Compensation (up to 4M HKD total comp)

A leading global investment bank is making a significant investment in AI across its Global Markets business and is seeking a Director-level hire to lead this build-out in APAC.

This is a rare opportunity to establish and scale a new AI/ML function within the Investment Bank, delivering cutting-edge solutions across trading and markets businesses with direct commercial impact. This role sits within a centralised Quant business within the Investment Bank, specifically for markets, offering strong alignment to front-office activity and direct influence on trading outcomes.

You will lead a Hybrid team of 4-6 and work closely with senior stakeholders across APAC, driving the design, development, and deployment of AI solutions with measurable PnL impact. A key part of the mandate is to bring AI/ML technical excellence into the team, acting as the senior technical authority. The team’s mandate is extremely broad, spanning quantitative modelling, GenAI and agentic applications across multiple business areas.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and lead a high-performing AI/ML team supporting Global Markets
• Own end-to-end delivery of AI programmes, from ideation through to production and governance
• Partner directly with trading desks and business leadership to identify and execute high-impact use cases
• Work across stakeholders, engineering teams, and governance frameworks to deliver production-ready AI solutions
• Apply advanced ML techniques across price forecasting, recommender systems, reinforcement learning, and decision-making under uncertainty, with a clear focus on PnL impact
• Deliver initial use cases within FX, establishing proof of concept before scaling across asset classes
• Drive best practice across responsible AI and model governance

Requirements

• Strong technical expertise in AI/ML, with the ability to remain hands-on where required
• Proven track record delivering AI/ML solutions in complex, stakeholder-driven environments
• Experience managing end-to-end AI/ML projects, from stakeholder engagement through to engineering deployment and governance
• Experience within Markets or Investment Banking (APAC exposure advantageous)
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to engage credibly at senior/front-office level
• Operating at a senior Director level, with clear experience engaging leadership and driving strategic initiatives
• Typically suited to individuals who have been at Director level for ~2–3 years and are ready to step into a broader leadership remit
• Experience building or scaling teams and driving AI/LLM initiatives
• Exposure to electronic or high-frequency trading environments is advantageous, but not essential
• Must be based in (or willing to relocate to) Hong Kong

NOTE:- we are not looking for software engineers. Everyone needs to be competent at coding and understand the fundamentals of modern gen AI but you don’t need to be an expert at all topics.

This is a high-profile, strategically backed hire with significant investment, offering the opportunity to shape the AI agenda within a leading global markets business.

Get in touch today for a confidential discussion.

tg@barclaysimpson.com