Manulife Investment Management has appointed Charlie Dutton, an equity investment leader with substantial experience in Asia, to the newly created role of chief investment officer, global emerging market equities.
In this new role, Dutton (pictured) will oversee and align Manulife IM’s Asia ex-Japan and emerging market equity capabilities, using local resources and insights from across the organisation, according to a statement by the asset manager.
He will continue to be based in London, although he will be spending time in Asia with the investment teams across the region.
“The closer alignment of the Asia equity team with the global emerging markets equity organisation formalizes the longstanding sharing of ideas and insights between our Asia and our emerging markets equity teams,” said Colin Purdie, global chief investment officer, public markets, Manulife Investment Management.
Dutton has spent more than 27 years in the investment industry, including over 25 years covering Asia equities, with seven years in Hong Kong as well as South Africa and London. Prior to joining Manulife Investment Management’s emerging markets equity team earlier this year, he was a fund manager at Ninety One as part of the global quality capability team that managed assets across five strategies.
Before Ninety One, Dutton was a founding partner at Coupland Cardiff, an Asian investment firm, where he spent 10 years managing Asian focused equity funds. Prior to that, he was based in Hong Kong and worked as director of Asia Pacific research at JPMorgan and as a Hong Kong/China consumer analyst at JF Securities. He started his career at HSBC based in Hong Kong as a HK/China analyst.
“We are confident [Dutton’s] deep investment experience, including over 25 years investing in Asia equity, makes him ideally suited to take on the role of CIO, emerging markets equities,” said Steve Medina, chief investment officer, global equities, Manulife Investment Management.
At the same time, Manulife IM said that Kathryn Langridge, senior managing director, senior portfolio manager, and head of emerging markets equity team, will retire effective 31 October 2025, after an investment career spanning over 40 years. Meanwhile, Ronald Chan, CIO, Asia ex-Japan Equity, is also leaving the asset manager.
