Boutique wealth manager adds staff in wake of record year for client wins. On the back of a record year for new-client acquisition, multifamily office Bessemer Trust has made yet another senior-level hire with the appointment of former Lehman Brothers executive Holly Isdale as its deputy head of family-wealth advisory services.

Describing Isdale as "a high-profile thought leader in the wealth-management industry" and an expert on wealth planning "for families with complex inter-generational needs," Bessemer's senior fiduciary counsel William Forsyth calls her "a welcome addition to our fiduciary group at a time when Bessemer's client base has experienced significant growth."

Heightened importance

Isdale worked at Lehman for nearly five years through September 2008, when the investment bank collapsed. She spent most of the time since then with Barclays after London-based Barclays' partial acquisition of Lehman in bankruptcy proceedings. Before that, she spent about five years at Goldman Sachs and about five years at JPMorgan (now part of JPMorgan Chase). An attorney, she began he career at the law firm Fried Frank.

Isdale's hire "exemplifies our commitment and ability to attract the industry's most accomplished professionals," according to Bessemer's senior managing director Robert Elliott. "Her hire is especially well-timed because legacy planning and other wealth-advisory services take on heightened importance in times of economic and market dislocation."

New York-based Bessemer is 102 years old this year. In 2008, it added about 100 new clients so that it now oversees more than $50 billion for about 1,900 individuals, families and associated institutions.

In recent months Bessemer has hired former Bernstein Global Wealth Management principal Gilbert Chapman III in New York and ex-SunTrust Banks executive Michael Gragnani in Atlanta.

In addition to the locations mentioned, Bessemer has offices in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Naples, Fla., Palm Beach, Fla., San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Wilmington, Del., Woodbridge, N.J., London and Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. -FWR

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