Young D. Chin made the biggest move of his life two years ago when he decided to leave the Midwest to work for PNC Bank Corp.'s investment unit in Philadelphia.
At the time, Mr. Chin, 37, had never lived outside his home town of Chicago. He had met his wife there, earned bachelor's and master's degrees there, and worked for 14 years as an economist and investment consultant at Harris Bank.
But despite operating on unfamiliar turf, Mr. Chin has parlayed the move east into a sweet promotion. Last month, he moved from director of investment strategy for PNC to chief executive of PNG's Provident Capital Management unit, which manages the bank's value-oriented and international portfolios.
As Mr. Chin sees it, the years he spent at Harris doing quantitative analyses of investing techniques - along with his training in economics, finance, and statistics at the University of Chicago - have served him well.
He used this know-how to make sure that advisers were sticking to the investment strategies they had pitched to Harris clients. He also helped institutional investors mix and match investment styles to meet their risk and return objectives.
In his first job at PNC, Mr. Chin did similar analyses of PNCs investment advisers.
As head of Provident, Mr. Chin's range in a sense will be narrower, since the unit has a limited palette of investment styles. It advises clients on a total of $93 billion of investments.
But Mr. Chin thinks his broad background will be an asset.
"I will be drawing from my experiences in analyzing over 400 investment firms to develop a culture that helps investment professionals flourish," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chin is enjoying his new environs. A personal computer enthusiast, he used his own high-powered PC to design his new dream home in Blue Bell, Pa., a 26-mile commute from his office in the central city.
Mr. Chin said he pieced together pictures of different home features he liked on his PC. He used telephone lines to send the samples to his wife and children in Chicago and gave a printout of the composite to his contractor.
While the new home was being built, he used the PC to send his family pictures of how the house was progressing. They joined Mr. Chin in Blue Bell when the home was completed in March of last year. As to the Northeast, with all due respect to Chicago, Mr. Chin says he loves it. "The variety of terrain is much different from where I've come from," he said. "It's been delightful."
Young D. Chin
PNC Bank Corp.
Mr. Chin has been promoted to chief executive of one PNC's core investment units, Provident Capital Management Inc., of Philadelphia.
A native Chicagoan who relocated to Pennsylvania in 1992 and 'loves it," Mr. Chin will run a company that advises PNC clients on $9.3 billion of value-oriented and international investments.
Career track:
1978: Management trainee at Harris Bank in the economic research department.
1978 to 1984: Helped organize a Harris Bank consulting Practice for quantitative investment strategies.
1984 to 1992: Headed Harris Bank's quantitative investment consulting practice.
1992 to 1994: Directed investment strategy for PNC's investment management division.
Age: 37
Education: Bachelor's in economics and master's degree in business administration, with a specialty in finance and statistics. Both degrees were received from the University of Chicago
Family: Wife, Lisa, and three children; Nicholas, 10, Stacey, 9, and Tristan, 5
Hobbies: Personal computers, skiing in Colorado, playing chess and checkers with his children, reading biographies
