BNY Mellon has appointed Frank La Salla as chief executive of its alternative investment services business, taking over from Samir Pandiri, who has held the role over the last two years.

BNY Mellon has appointed Frank La Salla as chief executive of its alternative investment services business, taking over from Samir Pandiri, who has held the role over the last two years.

La Salla was most recently managing director at Pershing, responsible for all the firm’s business outside of US. In his new post, he will be based in New York and oversee a team of some 2,000 AIS professionals globally.

“Client demand for alternative investments is growing, as institutions and individuals seek to enhance returns and manage risk in a low-interest rate environment. At the same time, we're helping hedge fund managers deal with the host of new regulations and reporting requirements around those assets,” said Pandiri, executive vice president and CEO of asset servicing.

“We've seen a marked expansion in serving our alternative investment manager clients in recent years and continue to see tremendous upside potential in this business,” said Tim Keaney, BNY Mellon vice chairman and CEO of investment services.

Before BNY Mellon's acquisition of Pershing in 2003, La Salla was president and chief operating officer of BNY Clearing Services. Prior to that, he was managing director and COO at Societe Generale Securities in the US.

Alongside his new role, he will remain on the board of Pershing in the UK and continue to represent BNY Mellon on the board of directors of Euroclear PLC and Euroclear SA.

In other significant news of late, last month BNY Mellon named Jim Wylie as head of North America at its Newton Capital Management division - a newly-created role at the firm.

Based in New York, Wylie will lead and develop the firm’s North American distribution and client servicing business, reporting to Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management.