HF Foods Group Inc., a City of Industry, California-based food distributor to Asian restaurants across the Southeast, Pacific and Mountain West regions of the United States, has appointed Victor Lee as the company’s new chief financial officer, effective May 1. The company also has moved its headquarters to the existing offices of B&R Global Holdings in City of Industry, California.
Lee is replacing Peter Zhang, who served as the company’s CFO and co-CEO since the merger of HF Foods Group and B&R Global Holdings in November 2019. Zhang is retaining his positions as co-CEO and as a director of the company.
Lee, who joined HF Foods in December 2019 as chief corporate finance and strategy officer, has more than 27 years of senior management experience in strategic planning, sales and marketing, corporate finance, asset management, trade finance and investment banking.
Lee began his career at Citibank N.A., in 1993, handling small- and medium-sized corporate finance and progressed to a VP position in the International Personal Banking Division. In 1999, he moved to Deutsche Bank AG as a VP. In 2004, he was promoted to managing director and Singapore market head in the private wealth management division, where he was responsible for managing more than $1 billion in assets. From 2007 until 2009, he was with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management and most recently served as executive director and head of Singapore/Malaysia markets.
Since February 2012, Lee has served as president and CEO of Ascent Solar Technologies Inc. Lee is also the managing director of Tertius Financial Group Pte Ltd., a boutique corporate advisory and private investment firm, which he founded in February 2009. Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree in wealth management from the Singapore Management University.
“With the merger of HF Foods Group and B&R behind us, we believe it’s important to make the necessary logistical and human capital changes to ensure we are well positioned for the next phase of our evolution,” Zhang said. “We’ve therefore opted to move our headquarters to a space that better suits the size of our organization and to a region that allows us to more effectively communicate with both customers and suppliers.
“It also became apparent with the increased scale of the business that appointing an individual who could solely lead our finance department would best position the company going forward. Victor has done an excellent job since he joined the team, and his work here coupled with his extensive background in relevant senior leadership positions made him uniquely qualified as our new chief financial officer.”
