People Moves

Summary Of Executive Moves In North America Wealth Management - July 2019

Editorial Staff August 7, 2019

Summary Of Executive Moves In North America Wealth Management - July 2019

A summary of moves for July this year in the continent's wealth management sector.

First Republic Bank appointed Mark Beach and Rick DuPont as wealth managers based in Silicon Valley on the Peninsula. Prior to First Republic, Beach was a senior vice president at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, which he joined in 1999 from Lehman Brothers. Beach earned a bachelor of science in managerial economics from the University of California, Davis.

Prior to First Republic, DuPont worked for Merrill Lynch/Bank of America as senior vice president for 18 years. He works with clients to develop a wide range of investment strategies, including managing concentrated stock strategies and pre-IPO stock planning and diversification. DuPont earned a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of San Francisco, and he has the professional designation of Chartered Retirement Planning CounselorSM, CRPC®.

UBS appointed a new deputy head of its Americas chief investment office. Solita Marcelli joined from JP Morgan's global wealth management business where she was global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities, according to an internal memo. Russell Budnick was named JP Morgan’s new global head of fixed income, and Scott Schnipper became the new global head of foreign exchange, commodities and rates. Marcelli reports to Mike Ryan, who heads the North America division. He works with John Mathews, head of the family office solutions group.

Raymond James promoted Patrick O’Connor to the post of Northern Division director of Raymond James & Associates (RJA) – the firm’s employee advisor broker/dealer. O’Connor has been with the firm for 18 years, serving most recently as Florida regional director in the Eastern Division. He joined Raymond James in 2001 to lead product development and advisor support for Alternative Investments Group and in 2006 co-founded the Wealth Solutions department. Prior to that, he was the Coastal regional director and also led a variety of efforts as part of the Wealth, Retirement and Portfolio Solutions team.

Raymond James appointed Randel Morris. Morris manages the Cranberry Township, Beaver, Oil City, and Williamsport branches and joined Raymond James after 20 years at Hilliard Lyons, where he was most recently director of recruiting. Before that he was regional manager overseeing branch expansion from Michigan through to the Carolinas. He obtained his CFP designation in 1988.

Raymond James brought over financial advisors Austin Heberger and Gavin Lee to join Raymond James Financial Services, which is the firm’s independent broker/dealer in Pasadena, California. The advisor duo operate as Arroyo Capital Partners and join from Wells Fargo, where they previously managed about $350 million in client assets. Joining them at Raymond James are Jenifer Graybill, office manager, and Leonard Emocling, client services manager. The team works with a variety of clients, including families, retirees and female investors.

The firm also brought in financial advisor David Ahlquist to join its advisor broker-dealer business. He is based in Houston, Texas. Christie Hayden, practice business manager, also joined. Together they operate as Ahlquist Private Wealth Management of Raymond James. Clients include family offices, healthcare professionals, non-profits, philanthropists and retirees. Ahlquist has 20 years of financial services experience, beginning his career as a private client investment consultant at Charles Schwab in 1999. He later joined TIAA in Austin and Houston, Texas, where he served as a senior wealth management advisor for 15 years. He is a graduate from the University of Maryland.

Carolinas Investment Consulting has appointed John Silvia as director of economics, having recently retired as MD and chief economist at Wells Fargo. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he held that position since he joined Wachovia in 2002 as the company’s chief economist. (Wells Fargo bought Wachovia in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.) Prior to Wells Fargo, Silvia worked on Capitol Hill as a senior economist for the US Senate Joint Economic Committee and as chief economist of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Before that, he was chief economist of Kemper Funds and managing director of Scudder Kemper Investments.

Silvia holds a BA and PhD degrees in economics from Northeastern University in Boston and has a master’s degree in economics from Brown University. His first book Dynamic Economic Decision Making was published by Wiley in August 2011. John’s second book, Economic and Business Forecasting was also published by Wiley in 2014.

John currently serves as a member of the Consensus Forecasts Panel of global forecasters.

Raymond James brought over the Henderson Hutter Group, a wealth manager based on the Gulf Coast, to its broker/dealer business. The group was  previously with Merrill Lynch. The firm is based in New Orleans and was founded by Lee Henderson and George Hutter. Rounding out the team were Megan Giardina, Christine Shea, financial planner, Patrick Kungl, investment associate, and Alli Eis, business operations coordinator.

LPL Financial brought newly-formed Charton Financial Group, an organization overseeing about $500 million in client assets, to its broker-dealer and RIA platforms. The business is run by Edward Charton, principal, having previously been at FMS Financial Partners, an affiliate of Kestra Financial Partners. Edward Charton began his financial services career in the insurance business, which morphed into a career in investments.

LPL Financial appointed Ashish Braganza as executive vice president for data, analytics and innovation. He reports to Burt White, LPL Financial managing director, investor and investment solutions, and is based at the firm’s Carolinas office. Braganza joined with more than a decade of experience. He most recently worked at OppenheimerFunds, where he was a senior vice president and head of client insights and analytics. Prior to that, he was a director of global analytics and business intelligence for Lenovo Group. A thought leader on the topic of data analytics, Braganza has published case studies on the subject and is frequently invited to speak at industry events. He is an active member of the Digital Analytics Association.

LPL Financial said advisors of PacNorth Retirement Group came to its broker-dealer and corporate registered investment advisor platforms. The advisors reported having managed approximately $1.1 billion of brokerage, advisory and retirement plan assets. They join from Raymond James Financial Services. PacNorth Retirement Group is the result of combining two financial practices started in the 1970s: RC Roland, Chad Roland, Blair Roland and Gary Douvia of RDH Investments, and Garry Borders, Matt Borders and Joel White of Borders, White, & Tait. The advisors work with team members Tina Nelson, Drushelle Warnick, Jeanne Schoney, JoAnn Packer and Mason Adams. They operate in Spokane Valley, Washington, and serve individuals and companies across the Pacific Northwest.

Eaton Vance appointed chief technology officers for its investment affiliates: Parametric Portfolio Associates; Eaton Vance Management and Calvert Research and Management investment affiliates. Ranjit Kapila joined Parametric as CTO and head of operations; Desmond Gallacher was promoted to CTO for EVM and Calvert.

Kapila joined from BlackRock, where he served most recently as managing director, global head of portfolio management investment systems. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2006, he spent 12 years in technology development and implementation at Citadel, RDA Corporation and ICARUS Corporation (now Aspen Technologies.). Gallacher joined Eaton Vance in 2014, serving most recently as division head of investment technology for EVM, where he led the strategic direction, implementation and support of EVM’s technology and data platforms. Before joining Eaton Vance, Gallacher held senior positions in product management and engineering for Charles River Development and DST Global Solutions.

Following Jay Welker’s decision to retire last November, Wells Fargo & Co appointed finance veteran Julia Wellborn to head its private wealth management division. Wellborn joined from Comerica Bank, where she was head of wealth management. Prior to that, she was president of the North Texas region for Wachovia, which Wells Fargo bought at the height of the financial crisis, completing the roughly $12.7 billion deal in early 2009.

Currently based in Dallas, Wellborn will relocate to New York City and is expected to start at the end of August.

Columbus, Ohio-based registered investment advisor Hamilton Capital added four new senior figures. Chief investment officer Tony Caxide and managing directors Mike Faieta, Peter Geldis, and Matt Kirby joined the group. Caxide leads the firm’s investment management team and oversees decisions on macroeconomic and portfolio construction. Faieta, Geldis and Kirby each lead on Hamilton’s advisory team, which provides planning and advisory services to a national client base.

Citi Private Bank appointed one of its long-standing figures, Cesar Chicayban, as its New York metro global market manager, a position previously held by Ida Liu, who is now head of the private bank in North America. Chicayban, who joined the North America leadership team and relocated to New York from Sao Paulo, Brazil, reports to Liu. At Citi Private Bank for almost 20 years, Chicayban was general market manager for Brazil. In addition to his role as GMM, he is a member of Citi Brazil’s executive committee.


Argent Advisors, a division of Argent Financial Group, appointed Jeremy Pendergrass as operations manager in its Minden, Louisiana, office. Pendergrass returned to Argent from Riverstone Software, where he served as chief executive for the start-up software company. Before that, he served as organizational leader at The Bridge Community Church in Ruston.

AE Wealth Management added Richelle Stoneking to the team as director of investment technology and solutions. Stoneking joined AE Wealth in March after spending the last decade working with a competing registered investment advisor and, prior to that, as a trading manager with Mariner Holdings.

Charlesbank Capital Partners, the private equity firm, appointed US industry luminary John Flannery as advisory director. He most recently served as chairnan and chief executive of GE. Flannery will work on evaluating new investment opportunities as well as growing equity value in the Charlesbank portfolio, the firm said in a statement.

With a career at GE going back to 1987, Flannery had a number of leadership roles in the US, Latin America and Asia, including CEO of GE Equity, CEO of GE Capital Asia, CEO of GE India and CEO of GE Healthcare.

KKR, or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the global investment house, appointed Emilia Sherifova as as its chief information and innovation officer. She is based in New York.

Sherifova joins from Northwestern Mutual where, as technology officer, she led the company’s digital transformation and previously was head of enterprise architecture and engineering.

Prior to joining Northwestern Mutual, Sherifova had CTO roles at LearnVest, a personal finance consumer startup, and at PulsePoint, an advertising technology platform. Prior to that, she had spent 13 years running technology at OTC Markets Group.

Bank of America named Merrill Lynch Wealth Management market executive, Livingston Albritten, as its market president for Memphis. He succeeded Michael Frick, who continued his role as global commercial banking market manager for western Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. Albritten is based in Memphis. A 15-year veteran of Bank of America, Albritten continues in his role as Merrill Lynch market executive for the Memphis/Little Rock market. 

Jeffries, the US investment banking house which includes wealth management in its offerings, appointed Jonathan Stone as its Asia chairman, based in Hong Kong. It also unveiled a number of other hires in Asia. Prior to joining Jefferies, Stone spent over three decades at CLSA Ltd, where he was chairman and chief executive. He oversaw CLSA's global operations of broking, investment banking, asset management, research and sales.

Ruggie Wealth Management, a central Florida firm with $566 million of assets under management led by Tom Ruggie, affiliated with a Carson Wealth business.

Chilton Trust, the US wealth management group, named Pepper Anderson as its chief executive. She took over from Garrison duP. Lickle, who became vice chairman. Lickle held the post since it was established in 2010. Prior to joining Chilton, Anderson spent more than 20 years with JP Morgan Private Bank, where she most recently served as managing director and market manager for Connecticut and Westchester County, New York.

Argent Trust Company appointed Tiffany Fontenot as a trust administrator in the Lake Charles office. She reports to vice president and trust officer Jim Christman. Fontenot joined Argent from the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Department, where she served as a senior administrative assistant for the past 19 years. Fontenot took over her role from Doris Stephens, who will retire after 15 years with Argent Trust.

International law firm Withers has hired Bryan H Kelly as a partner in its Los Angeles office. Kelly joins other partners Charles Kolstad and Eva Wolf and he is a private client and tax lawyer who joins Withers from Venable.

Kelly's practice involves both corporate and personal tax advice on domestic and cross-border matters, working with multinational companies and successful families with complex interests. He also represents sponsors and investors in connection with the formation and operation of private investment funds. 

Prior to his tenure at Venable, Kelly worked in the international tax services group at Ernst & Young and was in private legal practice in California and New York.

Aviva Investors added three new hires to its equities team in Chicago. Robert Plaza joined as a portfolio manager from Key Private Bank, where he was director of equity research. Nick Nikitas and Adam Schmitz joined as equity analysts from Robert W Baird and Harris Associates, respectively. A third analyst Nick Clare joined Aviva in February. The new hires report to Susan Schmidt, Aviva Investors’ head of US equities.

InvestCloud appointed Rebeca Sanchez Sarmiento as its chief financial officer. The role was a newly-formed one. Sanchez Sarmiento joined from ATTOM Data Solutions, where she served as CFO; previously, she was in senior finance roles at Smart & Final, Deutsche Bank, and Citigroup.

A former UBS Wealth Management managing director in the US set up a new business with a raft of erstwhile colleagues, Venture Visionary Partners, and partners with Dynasty Financial Partners. The new business has 11 professionals in total. Findlay has more than 24 years of experience in wealth management and is based in Toledo, Ohio. 

The following former UBS people work with Findley: 

-- Robert Retzloff, chief operating officer. With over 23 years of experience in the investment industry, previously he was account vice president-financial advisor at UBS; 

-- Brian Funkhouser, managing director, investments/retirement plan consulting. Previously, he was a senior vice president - wealth management, and senior retirement plan consultant at UBS; and 

-- John O’Brien director, retirement plan consulting. Previously, he was a senior retirement plan consultant and senior wealth strategy associate at UBS. He has more than 11 years of experience.

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