The appointee has been at Northern Trust for two decades. He is based in New York.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management has appointed Chris Vella as the new chief investment officer for its Investor Solutions business. Vella, who is based in New York, joined at the start of June and reports to Sinead Colton-Grant, head of IS. Stephen Kolano was the previous CIO of BNY Mellon Investor Solutions, a spokesperson told Family Wealth Report.

Vella is responsible for driving investment excellence across portfolio management, investment strategy and manager research. He will partner with senior leadership to grow the firm's commercial footprint in key client segments, including non-profits, family office, retirement and model portfolio solutions for RIAs and wirehouses, the organization said in a statement this week. 

Vella joined BNY Mellon from Northern Trust where he spent 20 years, most recently as chief investment officer of multi-manager solutions with responsibility for investment strategy, manager selection and portfolio construction for institutions and family offices. Prior to Northern Trust, Vella established the external manager research team and led the international equity global manager strategies team at Goldman Sachs.

In August last year BNY Mellon Wealth Management named William Eady as market president in Palm Beach, Florida. In June 2022 it appointed Tom Assad as senior client strategist.