Tom Grimmer

Tom began with Kreab in Beijing in 2009. He started his Asian career in Beijing in 1985, later working as a journalist for the South China Morning Post, the Globe & Mail, and the Financial Post (Canada). He transitioned from journalism to communications in the mid-1990s when he joined a Hong Kong investment bank, Peregrine. During the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998 Tom joined Credit Suisse First Boston, spending 11 years in a pan-Asian communications role with CSFB and the Credit Suisse Group based in Hong Kong and Beijing. He went on to be Head of Communications, Asia, for HSBC, covering 21 markets, and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

He has managed issues and crises in markets as varied as Japan, Indonesia, India and China/Taiwan. A specialist in capital markets and financial services, Tom also has a track record in CSR programmes, thought leadership and conference organisation. He founded the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference, which has run annually for more than two decades and is one of Asia’s largest private-sector events focussed on research and economics. He speaks Chinese and taught at two of China’s top universities, Fudan (Shanghai) and Tsinghua (Beijing), where he was a visiting professor in the School of Journalism & Communication. Tom graduated in Journalism from Ryerson University (Toronto) and studied Chinese at Taiwan National Normal University and the National University of Singapore.