Salomon Wettstein

Executive Director, Leader, Asset & Wealth Management (Tax), BDO

Kylie has over 20 years of experience in Singapore and international tax. Prior to joining BDO in 2015, she was a tax principal with a Big Four firm. Currently, Kylie leads BDO’s Asset Management and Private Wealth Tax practice in Singapore.

Kylie has worked on a broad range of tax advisory assignments involving cross border tax planning, private wealth structuring, due diligence, post deal restructuring, supply chain modelling, incentive negotiation, transfer pricing, alternative investments, debt offerings, permanent establishment issues, etc.

Kylie has also served a wide range of clients from different industries with particular expertise in fund and trust structuring, serving family offices and financial institutions with tax advice on their investments as well as assisting high net worth families w ith their tax, trust and estate planning issues on a multijurisdictional basis.

Kylie holds an Honours degree in Accounting and Finance from Monash University in Australia. Kylie is also regularly involved in various international tax seminars held in the region, and has also frequently published articles on taxation in the press.

Salomon Wettstein

Partner, Managing Director, Synpulse

Salomon Wettstein joined Synpulse in 2011 and has been appointed as Partner in 2019. He holds a Master in Computational Science and Engineering at the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Wettstein heads the Hong Kong office and oversees the banking practice in the Greater China region. He manages strategic business and technology transformations for clients in that region. Globally he leads the banking product and services offering.

Cara Williams

Global Segment Leader: Family Office and Financial Intermediaries, Mercer

Cara Williams, Senior Partner, is Global Leader for Financial Intermediaries and Family Offices. Located in London, Cara develops and drives the strategy for Mercer’s work with financial intermediaries, wealth management firms and family offices globally. She ensures clients’ needs are appropriately met with a wide array of solutions from market insights, manager research, asset allocation to deal sourcing and establishment of investment platforms and solutions. Cara presents regularly on global investment trends in wealth management as well as on Mercer’s When Women Thrive platform for Financial Services.

With over 24 years of experience in the pensions and investment industry, Cara began at Mercer’s investment consulting business as Global COO in April 2005. Before joining Mercer in the UK, Cara held roles in New York with Merrill Lynch Investment Management, and also for the French bank, CDC, where she oversaw European sales for their Investment Management group. Cara began her career in finance as a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch in New York. Prior to working in the investment industry, she was responsible for budgets and logistics for US Army and NATO MWR deployments. Cara is also an active mentor for external programs supporting and promoting women in their careers.

Cara graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a BA, and from The University of Hartford with an MBA in Finance.

Bassam Salem

Chief Executive Officer, Obuhi

Bassam Salem has always been an entrepreneur at heart when he ran large private banking businesses or in the way he is growing Obuhi, a social marketplace that connects freelance talent to those that seek them.

Bassam holds an MBA from Sorbonne and began his banking career with the Bank of Boston in 1981. Over the course of next 37 years, his career grew rapidly taking him to several leadership positions in large banks like Citi and EFG Bank where he was a founding partner. In 2018, Bassam retired as CEO of Citibank’s Private Bank business in Asia in to launch the next phase of his life, which was fuelled by a desire to work in the “new economy”.

Obuhi is a social platform that supports of the needs of the freelance or contingent workforce by connecting them to assignments, enabling communities, supporting their financial needs or helping them upgrading their skills.

Obuhi’s origins are firmly entrenched in the gig economy and it is to sharpen his skills that Bassam attended a course on Digital Strategy at Harvard Business School recently. Bassam believes his lasting contribution in the banking industry has been to find talent, train them and let them add value. It is this spirit that he carries over and is putting together a team of talented individuals who share his passion and vision and are working to grow Obuhi into one of the largest platforms of its kind globally.

Julia Leong

Partner, PwC Singapore
Transformation Assurance Leader

Julia is a Financial Services Partner with PwC and leads the Transformation Assurance practice. She is a risk specialist who works with clients on their business transformation programmes in advisory and assurance capacities to operationalise changes and manage programme risks to realise benefits. Types of transformations she has been involved in included core banking platform, finance, compliance & operational risk integration. Her sector focus is primarily in financial services (banking and wealth management) and she is PwC Singapore Private Banking lead. She is a member of the PwC global private banking community and also acts as a juror on the FT Private Banking Award run by PWM (Professional Wealth Management). She is a Fellow member with the Institute of Chartered Accountant of England and Wales and a Certified Internal Auditor.

Outside of work, she is a mentor with Young Women’s Leadership Connection and a member of the Board of Trustees with ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

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