US asset management giant BlackRock has appointed Tomoko Ueda as chief operating officer for Asia Pacific, effective September 3. Ueda will relocate from Tokyo to Hong Kong and report to APAC head Susan Chan. She currently oversees all business operations in the region and leads the finance and corporate strategy teams. Before joining BlackRock in 2022, Ueda worked at Nikko Asset Management, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch in the UK and Japan. She succeeds James Raby, who is moving to New York as BlackRock’s global head of compliance. Chan praised Ueda’s exceptional leadership in driving growth initiatives aligned with global economic changes, including digital disruption, demographic shifts, the low-carbon transition, and geopolitical fragmentation.