Based in Hong Kong, Darren is a former long-time Editor of the Asia Finance Team at Bloomberg News who combines 25 years of journalism, public relations and digital marketing – with a focus on financial markets, financial technology, AI and the evolving global digital assets community.  

Working actively across the Hong Kong, Singapore and broader Asia markets for the past 20 years, Darren has partnered with Honner to provide on the ground support to Honner clients wanting to expand their remit into key Asia markets. Working as an extension of Honner’s client account teams, Darren will provide clients with deep local market insights; assist with the development and localisation of content assets; and provide ‘on the ground’ media relations advice, media connections and issues management support – including supporting key executive meetings with journalists based in HK and Singapore.

Honner has known Darren since his time as journalist with Bloomberg in Australia in the 1990s. He started his media career at The Age in Melbourne. In 1999 he joined Bloomberg News to specialise in financial reporting and in 2004 landed at Bloomberg Hong Kong to cover Asia Pacific equity markets. In 2008 Darren was promoted to lead regional coverage of Asian equities, in time for the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the Global Financial Crisis. Darren’s team was part of Bloomberg’s award-winning coverage of the market fallout. In 2013, Darren joined Bloomberg’s Asia finance team as an editor, where he focused on financial technology and innovations at financial institutions. He maintains extensive media connections across the Asia Pacific region. 

In 2017 Darren left Bloomberg to establish the communications function at a crypto payments startup. He has since worked with 12 founder teams advising on strategic communications, media relations and marketing across fintech, Web 3 and AI. He has a Bachelor of Economics/Arts, Politics (Hons) from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma, Journalism from RMIT University. He has completed a strategic leadership course through Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Executive MBA program, along with certification in digital marketing and blockchain technology. He speaks fluent Indonesian. Working with colleague Maybelyne Ng, Darren acts as an affiliate agency consultant to the Honner team.