HONG KONG, Aug 29 (Reuters) - CLSA's chief executive Rick Gould is leaving the Chinese-owned firm after 16 months in the top job, the brokerage said on Saturday without offering any reason, the latest in a wave of departures.

Gould was based in CLSA's New York office for five years until April last year, when he relocated to Hong Kong to become the global chief executive, according to his LinkedIn profile.

CLSA is owned by Citic Securities , which bought the Hong Kong-based firm in 2013.

"I have enjoyed leading and working with our team immensely over the past six years, both in New York and in Hong Kong, and I look forward to the firm's continued success," Gould said in a statement CLSA sent to Reuters.

A CLSA spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the statement on the departure, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In April, CLSA hired Charles Lin, the former Asia head of Vanguard Group, as vice chairman.

Gould’s departure follows an exodus of staff from the firm over the past 18 months, with Jonathan Slone leaving as chief executive and Zhenyi Tang as chairman in March last year.

Those resignations resulted from CITIC’s efforts to revamp CLSA’s operations and differences over strategy, people with direct knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

Slone has since joined Jefferies, and the U.S.-based firm has hired at least 50 staff from CLSA in the past year.

Tang joined Credit Suisse as its China chief executive in June last year.

At least 27 staff had left CLSA's Australian operations to join Jefferies as it built up an investment and advisory business there, Reuters reported in June last year.

In September, Credit Suisse Group hired about a dozen analysts from Asian brokerage CLSA for its China Quantitative Insight team.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong; Editing by William Mallard)