The role was created in response to the growth of the organisation, now in its tenth year, and the increasing demands being placed upon it, the organisation said yesterday.
As chief executive, Jalles will work alongside the organisation’s non-executive chairman Richard Coles, a lawyer in private practice in the islands who also handles a number of non-executive directorships for various Cayman Islands-based financial services entities.
Jalles is a banking industry professional who was named chief executive of HSBC Cayman in January 2007, and who founded his own financial services consulting company, Javelin Group, late last year.
Between 2009 and last year he also served as president of the Cayman Islands Bankers’ Association.
Decade with HSBC
Jalles, who is Argentinian, first joined HSBC in February 2000 as manager of HSBC’s pension fund in Argentina, which at that point had assets under management of more than $3bn.
He subsequently handled a number of other roles at the bank, including head of HSBC Investments (Bermuda) before relocating to the Cayman Islands and heading up its operations there.
Jalles said he acknowledged the “responsibility placed upon me” as the new and first-ever CEO of Cayman Finance, which, he noted, will place him in the position of speaking to governments “locally and internationally”, as well as with local and international media.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to help ensure that Cayman’s voice is continued to be heard within the international financial community,” he added.
Cayman Finance chairman Coles said the organisation stood to benefit from Jalles’s almost 20 years of experience as a high-level banking professional, coupled with his "first class" education and "distinguished" qualifications.
The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory south of Cuba, is best known to many in the financial services industry for being the legal home to most of the world’s hedge funds.
