Hiro Chai has over 15 years of experience in global investment banking and carbon markets.
He started his career as a project engineer working on bridges and buildings in the UK. He then went on to transition into the global financial markets in Dubai after having worked on world-class projects such as Burj Khalifa and Jebel Ali Palm Island in UAE. Subsequently, he returned to Malaysia for good where he landed the role as Business Development (BD) manager at Kenanga Investment Bank. There, he dealt with international financial institutional clients and conducted new branch readiness assessments in accordance with the Securities Commission. He has also worked for CIMB Investment Bank as Associate Director of BD and Affin Hwang Investment Bank as Head of Derivatives.
Hiro then went on to work at Bursa Malaysia to manage the international development of its Derivatives Division. Following that, he was appointed as Head of BD and Sales in Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX). He was responsible for the successful launch of its inaugural carbon credit auction and go-live of their trading platform facilitating the first trade of their standardised contracts. During his time in BCX, he onboarded several FIs in Malaysia such as Maybank, CIMB Bank, AmBank and Permodalan Nasional Berhad as the first group of participants of the national voluntary carbon credit market exchange.
He has a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Swansea and was presented Golden Jubilee Award by the Institute of Structural Engineers in the UK. He was awarded the Japanese Government scholarship under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to study his Masters in Business & Administration (MBA) at the GLOBIS University in Tokyo.
Hiro is now the Director at Mitsusho Sdn. Bhd. The company provides decarbonisation as a service such as corporate training on carbon market, sustainability reporting for public listed companies, corporate carbon offsetting, consulting for carbon credit project development, and support service for validation on GHG inventory and product life cycle against ISO:14064 and ISO:14067 respectively.