Chris Kearns has been promoted from deputy CEO to CEO of BNY Mellon’s global depositary receipts (DR) business. He succeeds Michael Cole-Fontayn, the DR division’s CEO of five years, who is moving on to serve full-time as chairman of Europe, Middle East and Africa, as well as executive committee member for BNY Mellon.
Kearns, who has spent more than twenty years in the bank’s DR business, will now report to Tim Keaney, vice chairman and CEO of investment services.
British-born Kearns joined BNY Mellon’s international private banking division in London in 1989, moving on to the depositary receipts department two years later to take on sales in European markets including Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, where he established the DR franchise in 1994.
In 2003 he relocated to Hong Kong to lead DR sales and marketing in Asia-Pacific. In 2008, he was promoted to head the DR business for the region.
BNY Mellon’s DR division ‘acts as depositary for more than 2,700 American and global depositary receipt programs in partnership with leading companies from 68 countries,’ according to the firm.
