Quick Take: Veteran Regulator to Lead Shanghai Stock Exchange

A former securities regulator in charge of fund managers and financial risk management will be promoted to head of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, as part of Beijing’s ongoing effort to bring more order and investor confidence to the nation’s bourses, Caixin has learned.

Huang Hongyuan, 54, will be elevated from his current position as president and a deputy party secretary of the exchange in China’s commercial capital to its party chief and chairman, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

Huang joined the Shanghai bourse in 2011 after a long career at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), following a Chinese pattern that often sees officials move back and forth between regulators and the state-controlled enterprises and organizations they regulate. His appointment reflects Beijing’s desire to strengthen financial oversight, as well as the increasingly important role of Chinese exchanges in identifying and reporting market misconduct.

Before joining the exchange, Huang worked at the CSRC starting in 1992, and earned a reputation as a capable and tactful securities regulator, the sources told Caxin.

A graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Huang obtained masters and doctorate degrees in from Renmin University of China in Beijing. During his two decades at the CSRC, he also studied overseas, gaining a master of finance engineering from Imperial College London.

Huang was credited with clamping down on financial misdeeds by fund managers in 2004, and later continued to build up his career overseeing risk management and institutional regulation at the CSRC, according to an open profile (link in Chinese) on the Shanghai bourse’s website.

He will fill the position previously held by Wu Qing, who has been elevated to a vice mayor of Shanghai.

Contact reporter Leng Cheng (chengleng@caixin.com)