Barclays Stockbrokers, the brokerage unit of Barclays Wealth, the UK private bank, has appointed Des Byrne as its managing director; the current office-holder, Amy Nauiokas, is leaving to relocate to New York for personal reasons.

Mr Byrne was previously the head of emerging markets distribution at Barclays Capital, which is the investment banking arm of Barclays, the UK banking group that owns Barclays Wealth. He has worked at Barclays Capital since June 1996.

Ms Nauiokas has left to spend more time with her family and to focus on developing a number of charity projects and private equity ventures, Barclays Wealth said in a statement.

Ms Nauiokas has agreed to stay on with Barclays Wealth in a strategic consultancy role, based in New York.

Mr Byrne has worked in financial services for more than 27 years.

“As a member of the management committee, Amy Nauiokas has been an important figure in the overall transformation of Barclays Wealth, bringing commercial drive and creativity to our team”, said Thomas. Kalaris, Barclays Wealth chief executive. “I am delighted that Amy has agreed to remain involved in the firm. In Des Byrne we have an excellent successor and any transition will be seamless with no lost momentum.”

Barclays Stockbrokers is ranked number one in UK market share and has more than 400,000 clients.

Barclays Wealth is the UK’s biggest wealth manager by client assets and had £132.5 billion ($263 billion) of client assets globally at 31 December 2007.