Financial systems tend to fade into the background when they function as intended. Market downturns or overpromising products, however, bring every decision and decision-maker into sharp focus.
Based in Hong Kong, Henry Chen has spent the past 15 years working largely behind the scenes across investment banking, private capital, fintech, and digital assets, operating in regulated, cross-border environments where oversight, risk, and execution matter most. As digital assets move from speculation toward accountability, his career offers a clear lens on how that transition is unfolding.
Learning Discipline at Market Scale
Henry began his career in investment banking at UBS Hong Kong and Goldman Sachs Asia, spending eight years leading equity capital markets transactions across Greater China, Southeast Asia, and global markets, and helping raise more than $50 billion.
The role built a foundation rather than an endpoint, shifting his focus from transactions to working closely with founders and management teams on long-term execution, particularly in developing financial systems.
Speaking Both Financial Languages
By the time Henry moved into private capital, the divide between traditional finance and digital assets was clear. At Summer Capital, which he joined in 2018 as Co-Founding Partner and Managing Director of its fintech and blockchain fund, he focused on bridging that gap, leading investments across more than 40 blockchain and crypto companies spanning infrastructure, DeFi, real-world assets, and regulated digital finance.
Capital alone, he found, was rarely enough; founders often needed help translating innovation into structures that banks, asset managers, and regulators could engage with, including governance that held up under scrutiny, controls that could be audited, and compliance frameworks built for real oversight.
Acting as a bridge between institutions and crypto-native teams, Henry advised on strategy, governance, and fundraising, guided by intellectual honesty and the discipline to say no when opportunities conflicted with long-term integrity.
The same approach shaped durable relationships, including with HashKey Group, which completed an IPO in late 2025 after Henry had engaged with its exchange business years earlier as one of its earliest customers.
Why One-Size-Fits-All Fails in Fintech
Henry’s career spans Asia, with experience across key markets including Hong Kong, Greater China, Singapore, and Southeast Asia, alongside advisory or investment involvement in Japan and South Korea.
Working across these environments showed how differently financial systems develop under local regulatory and cultural constraints, and that progress comes less from speed or replication than from sustained local engagement.
As a result, he prioritizes close dialogue with regulators and policymakers, treating global markets as reference points rather than templates particularly in Asia, where regulatory expectations evolve quickly.
Scaling Inside Regulatory Boundaries
Henry carried these lessons into his role at KU Holdings Group, where he served as Head of Capital Markets and Head of Real World Asset Business Development. The group operates a global top-10 crypto exchange franchise alongside brokerage, FX, venture investment, tokenization, and blockchain businesses.
He led regulated digital finance initiatives focused on building a global real-world asset pipeline, spanning money-market funds, private equity and debt, commodities, intellectual property, and yield-bearing stablecoins across their full lifecycle. From September 2024 to December 2025, he also built and led 70-person teams supporting franchise development across Thailand, Hong Kong, and Greater China, and the UAE.
The Cost of Moving Too Fast
For Henry, regulatory compliance is non-negotiable and underpins every decision. He values collective judgment at the executive and board levels, emphasizing early engagement and swift resolution when issues arise.
Years in high-scrutiny environments have reinforced the importance of restraint, where slowing down or stepping away can protect long-term business health, reputation, and stakeholder interests. He also stresses clear communication, noting that trust erodes quickly when stakeholders feel managed rather than informed.
While he supports exploration in evolving regulatory areas, he maintains that progress must remain within legal and ethical boundaries, supported by ongoing regulatory dialogue. Formerly licensed by Hong Kong’s SFC (Types 1, 4, 6, and 9), Henry is reactivating his Responsible Officer status and continues to engage with policymakers and industry leaders on institutional adoption and real-world blockchain applications.
A Long-Term View on Fintech
Henry focuses on creating lasting value, drawn to fintech’s shift from novelty to practical use. As blockchain moves from speculation to infrastructure, through tokenized real-world assets and on-chain settlement in Asian and cross-border systems, he prioritizes integrity, long-term value, and strong teams, advising professionals to treat credibility as a long-term asset and think in decades, not market cycles. In a maturing digital finance landscape, his career reflects where influence truly comes from: sustained judgment, not visibility, in systems with real consequences.