PRESS RELEASE
March 2026
The Preston Associates (TPA) is delighted to welcome Maria Sit to the team. Maria brings nearly three decades of international leadership experience across Asia and Europe, working at the intersection of strategy, customer experience and large-scale transformation. Combining commercial discipline with deep systems thinking, she partners with CEOs, country heads and senior executive teams to translate ambition into sustained organisational performance. |
 |
Maria’s coaching style is pragmatic, commercially grounded and constructively challenging. As a Thinking Partner, she helps leaders bridge strategy and execution, strengthen cross-market and cross-functional alignment, and lead complex transformation agendas with clarity and composure.
Maria has held senior leadership roles within multinational financial institutions, including Chief Client Experience Officer at Sun Life Hong Kong, where she embedded customer-centric capabilities across strategy and operations to drive sustainable growth. She later joined AIA Group Office as Director of Customer Engagement, shaping customer strategy and strengthening alignment across 18 markets in Asia within a complex matrix structure.
Earlier in her career, Maria founded and scaled the Asia Pacific business of HeathWallace, a human-centred digital consultancy within the WPP network, partnering with global financial institutions to design customer-led growth strategies and digital experiences. She also held senior marketing and change leadership roles at AXA Investment Managers across London, Paris and Hong Kong, operating in highly matrixed and cross-cultural environments.
Fluent in English and Cantonese, with working proficiency in Mandarin and French, Maria brings a deeply international perspective particularly valuable to leaders navigating regional and global transformation mandates.
Tom Preston, CEO and founder of TPA, commented: “I am delighted to welcome Maria to the TPA team in Asia. She brings an exceptional background as a senior leader in financial services and is an outstanding executive coach. Maria will add significant value to both the TPA team and our clients across the region and beyond.”
Rainer B Schmitz, Partner and Head of TPA Asia, commented: “I am pleased to announce that Maria will be joining our team in Hong Kong, one of our most important markets. She will work closely with Catherine Eidens to build a strong team focused on advancing new client opportunities while further strengthening our support for existing clients.”
Maria said: “I’m delighted to join The Preston Associates and contribute to such a globally respected community of coaches. Drawing on my experience leading transformation and bridging strategy with execution, I look forward to helping leaders in complex organizations convert ambition into action – aligning teams, accelerating performance, and delivering sustainable commercial results.”
Note to Editors:
TPA is a leading Executive Coaching firm that develops senior leaders, teams and organisations internationally. Since 2003 the company has hand-picked its coaches based on their own senior business track records, their diverse backgrounds and a shared set of values. As a result they provide some of the most experienced and highly-qualified Executive Coaching consultants for clients in the UK and across the world.
The company has offices in London, Berlin, Paris, Dublin, New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore. They offer coaching in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin.
TPA has four key Executive Coaching offers:
• Individual Executive Coaching
• Board, Team and Group Coaching
• Organisational Development
• Organisational Insights Reviews
With specialisms in:
• Board & Senior Executive Mentoring
• Dynamic Growth Hub
• Family Business Coaching
• Elite Business Performance
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Business
• Resilience & Crisis Coaching
• Transition Coaching Expertise
The TPA philosophy: To be great Thinking Partners with our clients.
For further information, please contact:
Larisa Alexandrina at The Preston Associates:
[email protected] / 020 7373 5663
