Northern Trust has named Caroline Higgins head of global fund services (GFS), Asia-Pacific, effective 1 October 2023.
Ms Higgins has been the head of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan at Northern Trust since 2021, after initially joining the firm in 2016.
Before this, she held senior leadership, product and client management positions across Asia, Europe, and Australia. She was previously the head of transfer agency, Asia, at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) in Hong Kong.
Prior to BBH, Ms Higgins spent nine years at State Street in Ireland, Australia, and Hong Kong covering local and off-shore fund services, and has worked with RBC Global Services, UBS Brinson, and Citibank.
In her new role, she will return to Australia where she will focus on leveraging Northern Trust’s global capabilities and expand regional products and services for the firm’s asset manager clients.
According to a statement from Northern Trust, Ms Higgins will also be responsible for overseeing services to global investment managers including fund administration, depositary, global custody, transfer agency, investment operations outsourcing, and data solutions.
As such, the firm said she will support a range of complex investment strategies across the full spectrum of asset classes.
She will report to GFS president Toby Glaysher who, on the occasion of Ms Higgins’ appointment, said: “We are pleased to name Caroline to this role overseeing our GFS activities region-wide.”
“We see continued growth and increasing opportunity to offer our solutions to clients in Asia-Pacific. Caroline’s industry expertise, capabilities and experience working at Northern Trust across Asia, both focused on the region’s leading asset managers and Northern Trust’s global clients, will ensure we are well placed to continue to support their evolving needs,” Mr Glaysher added.
Northern Trust has offices across Asia-Pacific in Beijing, Bengaluru, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Melbourne, Pune, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo.
As of 30 June 2023, the firm have assets under custody/administration of $22.1 trillion (US$14.5 trillion) and assets under management of $2.1 trillion (US$1.4 trillion).
