Wei Sun Christianson

Wei Sun Christianson is a Managing Director and Morgan Stanley China CEO. She is also a member of Morgan Stanley’s Firm Management Committee.

Christianson is responsible for all aspects of the Firm's China business, including formulating China strategies and executing various firm initiatives. She has successfully strengthened Morgan Stanley’s China franchise by significantly broadening its footprint in China and providing more comprehensive services to its clients, including RMB commercial banking, RMB asset management and RMB trust services.

Since joining Morgan Stanley in 1998, and subsequently in positions held at other firms, Christianson has been involved in and led the executions of many of landmark privatizations critical to China's corporatization and economic liberalization process, involving the often complex restructuring and then initial public offerings (IPO) of state-owned enterprises in New York, London and Hong Kong. These include China Life, Sinopec, Chalco, Sinotrans and China Oilfield Services Ltd. She has also led the execution of several significant M&A transactions by overseas listed Chinese companies.

In addition to Morgan Stanley, Christianson also served at Credit Suisse as a Managing Director, Chairman and Country Manager for China, and at Citigroup as a Managing Director and Chairman of China for Citigroup Global Markets, between 2002 and 2005. She rejoined Morgan Stanley at the beginning of 2006 in her current role.

In the early nineties, Christianson was an Associate Director of Corporate Finance Department at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). While at the SFC, she helped formulate the rules and regulations of the local securities market in preparation for the public listing in Hong Kong of the first group of Mainland Chinese companies in 1993. Before relocating to Hong Kong for this assignment, Wei was a lawyer in New York with Orrik, Herrington and Sutcliffe, where she specialized in U.S. securities transactions, including the public listing and private placement of U.S. equities and bonds.

Christianson graduated cum laude from Amherst College, Massachusetts, where she currently serves on the board of Trustee. In 1989 she received her J.D. degree (with Honors in International Law) from the Columbia University School of Law. She is a lawyer admitted to practice in the State of New York.

Christianson has received many awards and accolades. Among others, she has been listed on the FORTUNE Most Powerful Women “International Power 50” list in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the Wall Street Journal’s “50 Women to Watch” List from 2006-2008. Wei is also on the list of Forbes “Power Women in the Wings” and Financial Times “Women at the Top: The Ones to Watch”. Christianson is married with three children and lives in Beijing.