J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) has appointed Sean Cunningham as head of Asia Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). A newly created role, Cunningham will be based in Hong Kong and will be responsible for driving the growth of the firm's ETF business across the region.

In developing JPMAM's overall Asia ETF strategy, Cunningham will partner with distribution, client service and investment teams to identify opportunities in the growing ETF product categories in Asia as well as serve existing clients across the firm's Beta Strategies business. This will include overseeing regional sales strategy, contributing to product development, working with client advisors and cultivating institutional and retail ETF client relationships.

The role will be effective as of 1 October. Cunningham reports to Bryon Lake, head of international ETFs, and locally to Philippe El-Asmar, Asia head of Beta Strategies, J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

"Sean has a proven track record of helping investors use ETFs to build better portfolios. He brings significant expertise to our team to help deliver J.P. Morgan Asset Management ETF solutions to investors throughout Asia. As part of our commitment to build out our Global ETF platform, Asia is an important and growing market and we are excited to deliver our full suite of global capabilities to investors across Asia," says Lake.

Cunningham joins the firm from BlackRock iShares, where he most recently served as Asia Pacific Head of Capital Markets, responsible for driving APAC business strategy and market structure, managing broker dealer relationships and overseeing product strategy. Prior to that, he worked at Barclay's Capital and Schroders Investment Management.