Investing in talent in Asia Pacific

In light of the strong increase in demand for UBS’s wealth management services in Asia Pacific, UBS has decided to create a regional training center for employees in Singapore. Scheduled to open early next year, it should help raise the number of UBS Asia Pacific client advisors, who currently number over 600.

To be called the UBS Wealth Management Campus – Asia Pacific, the center will be in the historic Command House, Admiral Lord Mountbatten’s post-WWII residence, which is fifteen minutes from the middle of Singapore. The facility will include a lecture hall equipped with video conference facilities, five seminar rooms and a media lab with more than twenty computers for business technology training.

The curriculum will offer four different levels of training. The first will focus on integrating new staff into UBS. The second should help employees broaden their knowledge of wealth management, while giving them industry-specific expertise and tools. The third should help client advisors specialize to provide, for example, services to particularly wealthy clients. It will also prepare and train potential future UBS managers. The fourth level will be for the firm’s existing leaders and managers. It should work to deepen their leadership skills through executive programs and related academic accreditation from universities.

The campus will not be only for employees. Clients will also be able to take a number of courses at the facility. In total, the center has capacity to train 1,000 people – clients, management and client advisors – a year.

As Asia – with China, India and Japan – is set to be home to three of the four largest economies in the world by 2030, the facility should ensure that UBS has enough highly qualified staff to take advantage of the significant growth in domestic wealth expected in the region, helping to further establish UBS’s position in Asia Pacific.