Hex Trust, a Hong Kong-based digital asset custodian, has appointed Colin Brooks as chairman of its advisory board. First appointed to the advisory board in July 2020, Brooks has over 35 years of experience in the securities industry, including 30 years in Asia.

He served as head of custody and clearing at HSBC for seven years, covering over 50 markets across six continents. In that role, Brooks was primarily responsible for building HSBC’s custody business from a small team to the biggest and most dominant sub-custodian in Asia.

Brooks moved to Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in 2015, first as senior adviser to the securities business and then as vice chairman of securities services based in Singapore, where his responsibilities included re-shaping the leadership team and driving forward a series of key change initiatives across multiple areas to effectively re-launch the SCB securities business. He retired from SCB in 2020 following the successful completion of the re-launch.

He has worked in a number of securities industry roles, including as a member of SWIFT’s Securities Council and its Asia-Pacific Advisory Group, board member of International Securities Services Association, and has been a regular speaker at industry conferences and contributor of industry articles.

Brooks won the recognition “Custodian Banker of the Year” at The Asset Triple A Asset Servicing Awards 2011 for his contribution to the development of the custody business in Asia and was named a Global Custodian Industry Legend in 2019.

He has a BA (Hons) in Linguistic Science from the University of Reading, UK, and also attended Universität Tübingen in Germany.