New York’s BNY Mellon has hired five professionals to fill newly-created positions within its expanding wealth management business in Southern California.

Tiffany Barbara, Bob Bernstein, Steven Mills and Grace Russak joined recently, while Rehan Chaudhry started in April. Mills reports to Ben McGloin, senior director of portfolio management, and the others report to Larry Miles, regional president for Los Angeles.

Senior portfolio managers Barbara and Bernstein are both based in Century City and each have 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. Previously, Barbara was a principal and senior client account manager at Bessemer Trust, where she oversaw a team of client account managers over $1 billion in assets. Meanwhile, Bernstein was latterly chief investment officer of Four Corners Capital Management, owned by Macquarie Funds Group.

Mills is a senior portfolio manager based in Newport Beach. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, he was senior vice president and senior client account manager at Bessemer Trust.

Finally, Russak, who has over 25 years of professional experience, is a senior director for business development based in the Century City office. She previously served for 15 years with the Whittier Trust company, most recently as a senior vice president, director of the firm's advisory services department and the art advisory services group.

Chaudhry, who started in April, is a Century City-based senior director for business development. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, he worked at JP Morgan, ending his time there with responsibility for over 50 high net worth client relationships.

Miles noted how Southern California is one of the firm’s fastest-growing markets. “In the past year our staff has expanded by 10 per cent, and more importantly, year over year our assets under management in the region have grown by more than 20 per cent,” he said. “We intend to build on that momentum with the strategic addition of key staff in the coming year.”

In other news, yesterday it emerged that BNY Mellon has bought the remaining half of its WestLB Mellon Asset Management joint venture from German portfolio management and service firm Portigon, adding to a number of merger and acquisition developments in the US and world's financial industry. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management has over $171 billion in private client assets.