A roundup of moves, hires and personnel changes in North American wealth management in February.

Cresset appointed Heather Pelant as managing director and wealth advisor work ultra-high net worth families. Pelant has more than 25 years of experience in investment advisory and financial strategy. Most recently, she served as a partner and managing director at Baker Street Advisors.

Milemarker, a wealth management data infrastructure platform, appointed Adrienne Paulsen as operations vice president. Paulsen has more than 10 years’ leadership experience from Orion Advisor Solutions.

iPipeline, which provides solutions for the life insurance and wealth management industries, appointed Loren Brockhouse as chief revenue officer and Mike James as executive vice president for professional services. Both persons report to CEO Pat O’Donnell.

Sterlington, an international law firm, added associate Roberta Bombaci to its private wealth practice in Philadelphia, along with estate and fiduciary accountants Sheryl Roth and Robert M Maxwell.

PPB Capital Partners, an investments platform, partnered with asset management professional, David Silvera, who has worked in the sector since 1990. Silvera has held leadership positions at asset management firms.

Baker Street Advisors, an RIA, appointed Christopher Wilkens to the newly-formed role of CEO, and appointed its chief investment officer, Peter Hand, as a partner.

Baird promoted John Melick to market director, overseeing the firm’s Birmingham, Columbus (Grandview Heights), Columbus (Easton), Toledo, Findlay, and Akron wealth management offices in Ohio. Melick joined Baird’s Private Wealth Management business in January 2018 when he founded the Toledo, Ohio, office. Before joining Baird, Melick worked at Wells Fargo Advisors and started his career in 1984 as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley. The business also promoted Ally Shuman to market director.

Sagient, a wealth manager based in El Segundo, California, appointed Pete Alliegro, as chief investment officer – a newly-created role. Alliegro reports to Paul Karlitz, chief executive. Most recently, he was director of business development at SteelPeak Wealth, and before that he was senior vice president for West Coast RIAs and family offices at Crew Enterprises.

Broadridge Financial Solutions appointed Frank Troise as president for global capital markets, reporting to Tom Carey, president, global technology and operations at Broadridge. Troise joined the firm in 2024 as head of trading.

Janney Montgomery Scott added a Delaware-based wealth team: Warren-Fantano Wealth Management. The group is led by financial advisors Peni Warren, (managing director), and Chris Fantano, (MD), who also serves as branch manager for the Middletown office. They were joined by senior registered private client associate Crystal Van Lenten and senior private client associate Catherine Huffman.

Envestnet appointed Rich Friedberg as chief information security officer. Most recently, Friedberg served in the same role at Live Oak Bank. Previously, he held senior security leadership positions at Blackbaud and Capital One. Envestnet appointed Jonathan Linstra as chief growth officer, reporting to Chris Todd, chief executive office. Most recently, he served as managing director of the Americas for Morningstar Wealth.

Lenox Advisors appointed Susan E Owens, as senior vice president for financial planning. Owens has more than 30 years of experience in financial services, advisor training, and technology integration.

FINTRX, a private wealth intelligence platform that covers areas such as family offices, made the following senior appointments: Chris Kiley as chief revenue officer, who the organization in 2017; Dennis Caulfield as chief product and data officer, who joined in 2018; and Patrick Bendon as director of sales, reporting to Kiley. Before FINTRX, Bendon spent more than a decade at PitchBook Data.

Ascentis Wealth Management, part of Ascentis Holdings – a group holding RIA firms – welcomed Ascentis Family Wealth. It is a newly-launched wealth advisory firm led by Kevin Gray, based in Dallas. Previously, Gray founded Veracity Capital and served as its CEO.

Jason Mochi of Shoreline Private Wealth Management joined the broker-dealer and RIA platform of LPL Financial. Mochi was formerly with Morgan Stanley.

Joshua Moss was appointed to lead the US private wealth business of W1M Wealth & Investment Management.

Keebeck Real Estate appointed Abbas Kazmi to build the business. The team is based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Arta Finance, an AI-driven wealth and fintech firm headquartered in Silicon Valley and Singapore, named a new CEO, Felix Lin, who succeeded co-founder Caesar Sengupta. Lin most recently served as president and CFO of the company. Prior to Arta Finance, he was vice president of payments partnerships at Google.

Mercer Global Advisors appointed Lindsay O’Toole as senior vice president for investment platform operations. O’Toole spent more than 17 years at LPL Financial, where she most recently served as senior vice president of trading.

Private Advisor Group made appointments across advisor growth, finance, strategy, operations and sales enablement: Daniel Johnson, director of advisor strategy; Greg Gavin, director of growth and engagement; Jamie Kulik, chief of staff and sales enablement; and Kevin Bohrer, director of corporate finance.

KeyBank appointed Michelle Perez as managing director, head of Key Family Wealth client development and strategy, the multi-family office division of Key Wealth. Perez reports to Robert Weiss, head of Key Family Wealth as part of his leadership team. Perez, who joined in 2007, most recently served as Key Private Bank regional executive for the Central Region.

Midtown Advisors, an independent wealth management firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina, affiliated with Osaic, a US provider of wealth management strategies. Midtown is led by managing director Tom Perry. The team also includes director of sales operations Blake Perry, and office manager Stacey Nelson.

Janney Montgomery Scott has appointed two senior financial services professionals: Chip Hoke and Robert Dunkley.

First Horizon Bank appointed Eric Teal as chief investment officer of its wealth management arm. Before this, Teal worked at Comerica, where he served as CIO and was a member of the wealth management senior leadership team.

RBC Wealth Management – US added a group formerly with UBS. The group – Wilson Wealth Management – opened a new branch in Alpharetta, Georgia. The team includes James Wilson, managing director and financial advisor; Ryan Nicholas Kopec, senior financial associate; Kristin Michelle Wint, senior registered client associate; and Megan Harris, senior client associate.

Baird welcomed The Cowans Mitchell Group to a new office opening in Chandler, Arizona. The group joined from Edelman Financial Engines, where they managed $305 million in assets. The team includes Jason Cowans who joined as director and financial advisor, Wilson Mitchell as vice president and financial advisor, and Carmen Vander Wal as client assistant.

Boies Schiller Flexner appointed Matthew Edwards as a partner in the family law practice in the firm’s Washington, DC office. Edwards deals mainly with matrimonial cases for high net worth individuals.

Lazard Asset Management appointed Gordon McKemie as managing director and head of leveraged loans and high yield. He is based in New York, reporting to Arnaud Brillois, global head of fixed income.

RBC Global Asset Management expanded its US intermediary sales team. The joiners are Scott Martin, director, US intermediary sales – South Central; and Brad Havenga, director of US intermediary sales – Northeast. They report to Dave Eikenberg, head of US intermediary sales at RBC GAM.

Goldman Sachs elevated seven partners to join its management committee, widening its top decision-making group to 46 people. Several of the new partners came from wealth management. Promotions included James Reynolds and Vivek Bantwal, global co-heads of private credit within Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

John Mallory and Nishi Somaiya, global co-heads of the wealth management unit at the bank, joined the committee. They replaced Tucker York, who was named chair of global wealth management and remains on the committee.

Other committee joiners were Michael Brandmeyer, global head and chief investment officer of the external investing group, Kristin Olson, global head of alternatives for wealth, and Gregory Calnon, global co-head of public investing. They are part of the asset and wealth-management arm.

Judy Spalthoff, a senior figure in the wealth management business of UBS in the US, became head of family office and UHNW client services for Americas at the Swiss bank. Spalthoff continues to report to Jennifer Gabrielli, who is MD, head of global family and institutional wealth and UHNW advisory for the Americas, and head of unified global banking for the Americas.

Raymond James
A team of advisors based in Maryland joined the employee advisor channel: Garrett Thrift, Kara Burt, Blake Saulsbury and Wade Oursler. They arrived from Merrill Lynch where they previously managed about $1 billion in client assets.

Raymond James Financial Institutions Division welcomed financial advisors Marsha Clark, Kevin Clifford, Nick Hennessy and Ed Kerley, to First Investments & Planning, located at FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha).

Financial advisors Michael Compiano and Dan Porter joined Raymond James from Commonwealth Financial Network where they looked after more than $400 million in client money. They work with its independent advisor channel and operate as Two Oaks Wealth, in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Advisors – Reed Thompson, David Erwin, John Pratti, John Nolan, Patrick Sheehan and Jillian Feehan – joined the firm, operating as Touchpoint Financial Advisor Group in Woburn, Massachusetts.