Unit formerly known as Shields Associates takes aim at implemented consulting. Wealth-management and small-institutional investment-platform provider Clearbrook Financial's institutional consulting arm Clearbrook Investment Consulting (Clreabrook IC) has hired Eric Wood, formerly managing director of Syndicate Advisers, to run the subsidiary's new "Implemented Consulting" business.

Implemented consulting has to do with implementing and monitoring manager selection recommendations and providing services such as consolidated reporting and risk management.

"Eric brings tremendous depth of knowledge and incredibly unique experience as an investment professional," says Elliot Wislar, president of Clearbrook Financial. "At a time when more small institutions are seeking to delegate their portfolio management to a trusted partner, Clearbrook is excited to offer highly sophisticated and diversified solutions in a cost-effective manner."

Growth area

Clearbrook IC's Implemented Consulting group will provide discretionary investment-management services to defined-benefit plans, foundations and endowments with less than $300 million under management.

Assets in the U.S. implemented-consulting market have doubled to around $200 billion since 2004. By 2012, it should have more than $500 billion, according to investment-firm consultancy Casey Quirk.

Wood comes to Stamford, Conn.-based Clearbrook IC with more than 20 years of experience in developing and managing institutional-investment programs. In addition to running Greenwich, Conn.-based Syndicate Advisers -- a joint venture of AQR Capital Management and First Quadrant -- he was president and chief investment officer of Stamford-based Investment Solutions, an independent investment advisory he founded in 1998, and, for nine years, chief investment officer of the Zurich-based engineering conglomerate now known as ABB Group.

At Clearbrook IC, Wood will oversee all aspects of the Implemented Consulting business from research and business development to marketing and operations.

Princeton, N.J.-based Clearbrook Financial acquired Clearbrook IC -- then called Shields Associates -- in 2005. The unit caters to mid- to small-size businesses, endowments and foundations, insurance companies, public retirement funds, family offices and RIAs.

In a related development, Tom Sowanick, formerly head of Clearbrook Financial's reserach division, has left the firm to join the multifamily office Clearbrook Partners -- which was part Clearbrook Financial until it broke away in the first quarter of 2009 -- as its chief investment officer.

Princeton-based Clearbrook Partners used to be known as Shields Private Client. -FWR

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