February was a relatively brisk month for moves in the North America wealth management arena.

Albany, New York-based Cherry Bekaert Wealth Management, the accounting and advisory firm, appointed Jeff Peller as new chief executive officer. Peller has more than 25 years’ experience in coaching clients and advisors in a CPA-based wealth management firm as a strategic advisor and growth partner. He is a certified public accountant, certified financial planner, and personal financial specialist.

US-based tru Independence, the financial advisory partnership platform, appointed industry veteran Amit Dogra as president. Dogra has held executive leadership posts at Sanctuary Wealth, Third Seven Advisors, HighTower, BNY Mellon and Brinker Capital, among others. 

Cantor Fitzgerald appointed former UBS executive William Ferri as its global head of asset management to lead the expansion of its platform. Ferri had a 25-year career at UBS, where he served as head of Americas for UBS Asset Management and was group managing director. He was a founder of the UBS O'Connor and Hedge Fund Solutions businesses. 

Baird, the US wealth, investment bank and private equity firm, added Charles Patrick O’Connor as a senior vice president and financial advisor to its Yakima, Washington, wealth management team. Separately, it added the Helms Shadid Group to its wealth management office in Durango, Colorado.

In the case of O’Connor, he joined from Morgan Stanley, bringing more than 20 years of industry experience and a client roster that includes $450 million in assets under management. As far as the Helms Shadid Group is concerned, the team includes Thomas Helms, who serves as a director and financial advisor and Scott Shadid who serves as a senior vice president and financial advisor. They are supported by Brett Cadwell, client specialist. The team manages more than $400 million in assets under management. 

Helms has 14 years of industry experience. Shadid has eight years of industry experience.

Raymond James welcomed Jennifer Main to Raymond James & Associates, its employee advisor channel in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Main, along with client service associates Auda Childs and Sean Coen, operate as Main Wealth Management of Raymond James. They joined from Edward Jones, where the team previously managed $220 million in assets for a variety of clients including business owners, families and individuals, healthcare professionals and retirees.

Raymond James appointed Todd Ferguson as chief information security officer. Ferguson, who served in the US Marine Corps, spent more than 20 years at Raymond James in roles ranging from network engineer to his most recent role as senior vice president of information security. In 2018, he was named deputy CISO for RJF and “CISO of record” for Raymond James Bank, Raymond James Trust, Carillon Tower Advisers and Raymond James Insurance Group.

The firm welcomed financial advisors Dan Smith IV, Todd Bryant, Eric Carlson and David Pieronowski to its independent advisor channel. Operating as Signature Wealth Partners in Orlando, Florida, the advisors were joined by client services specialists Cathy Stockton, Diane Stallard and Elizabeth Hall. 

Anothip “Thip” Zimmerman joined Raymond James & Associates (RJA). Previously, he worked at Wells Fargo Clearing Services, where she managed $174 million in client assets. 

Raymond James Financial Institutions Division welcomed financial advisors Thomas Montz, Amanda Montz and Nathan Novotny to SmartBank Investment Services, a subsidiary of SmartFinancial, and a current FID-affiliated branch.

The advisor trio was previously affiliated with BBVA Compass Investment Solutions where they collectively managed more than $350 million in client assets. Together, they lead their six-person wealth management team through a new SmartBank branch in Mobile, Alabama.

Argent Financial Group named Russell Allsup as Louisiana vice president. He joined the Shreveport Argent Trust office. Allsup, who reports to Louisiana market president Gary Moore, works with Argent Financial Group executive vice president Dut LeBlanc in Argent Family Wealth Services,

Before joining Argent, Allsup was with KPMG for 12 years, serving most recently as managing director of corporate tax services. His previous positions with KPMG included senior manager and manager of corporate tax services. 

Argent also appointed T J McGee as vice president and trust officer for Argent Trust Company. McGee is based in New Orleans, reporting to Jill Knight Nalty, market president for New Orleans. Before joining Argent, McGee served as vice president and institutional trust relationship consultant at Regions Bank in Baton Rouge. 

Manulife Investment Management named Marc Feliciano as global head of real estate, private markets. Feliciano reports to Christoph Schumacher, global head of real assets. Previously, he was the chief investment officer of real estate, Americas, DWS and the head of portfolio and asset management for the Real Estate Americas business. He was also head of the Americas debt investments group. Feliciano has nearly 30 years of experience spanning public and private real estate investment management.

The US Department of the Treasury said the Office of Financial Research’s director, Dino Falaschetti, had left. James Martin became the acting director.

Capitol Securities Management, a firm serving the Mid-Atlantic region, appointed Jason T Ferree from Wells Fargo Advisors. Ferree, who has 23 years of experience in the sector, began his financial services career with First Union in 1999. First Union and Wachovia merged and a few years later was bought by Wells Fargo. 

Rockefeller Capital Management brought the Greenwood Village-based Hablutzel Group into its embrace, building out its presence in Colorado. Led by managing director Brent Hablutzel, the team includes Zachary Bond-Stefo, vice president and private wealth advisor, Lori C Caddey, associate vice president, senior client associate, and Shayna Yallaly, registered client associate. The four-member team, which joined from Merrill Lynch, reports to Michael Armondo, MD at Rockefeller Capital Management.

Dynasty Financial Partners appointed Sean Lindenbaum as director of network development, for the Southeast division of the US. Lindenbaum is based on Florida’s east coast and reports to John Sullivan, head of network development. Lindenbaum was previously managing director of sales at TD Ameritrade Institutional from 2005 to 2021, where he was responsible for leading the Southeast and Mid Atlantic sales team. He has more than 20 years of experience in delivering business solutions designed to increase revenue and sales growth. 

Manulife Investment Management made a number of promotions and changes to its fixed-income investment teams: 

Daniel S Janis III, head of global multi-sector fixed income, retired; Christopher M Chapman, portfolio manager, was promoted and named co-head of the team in order to help ensure a smooth transition for clients over the next 13 months. He reports to John F Addeo, CIO of global fixed income, Manulife Investment Management. Chapman became the head of the team when Janis retired.

Bradley L Lutz, portfolio manager, preferred income, joined the team as a portfolio manager, and reports to Chapman. Sherri Tilley joined Manulife Investment Management as a client portfolio manager.

Connor Minnaar, securitized analyst on the securitized assets research team, was promoted to portfolio manager on the core and core-plus fixed-income team.

Caryn E Rothman was promoted to senior portfolio manager and head of the global credit team. Rothman was listed as a portfolio manager across all of the team’s funds. 

Carson Group appointed Nimesh Patel to fill the newly-created role of chief technology officer. 

Patel has more than 20 years of professional experience. Prior to this new role, Patel was CEO of Prefix Health Technologies, a tech startup that modernized access and delivery of social benefits to vulnerable populations. Previously, he served as COO and CTO at Cresset, a startup in Capital Markets, where he helped incubate and grow the firm to reach $5 billion in assets under management in under two years.

Prominent fund manager and market commentator Ruchir Sharma joined Rockefeller Capital Management. As managing director and chairman, Rockefeller International, Sharma serves as an advisor to the firm, a resource for its global family office advisors and clients, and a global brand ambassador. Sharma also plans to form an investment company, Breakout Capital, in which Rockefeller Capital Management will be a partner. At Rockefeller Capital Management, he reports directly to Greg Fleming, CEO.

For the past 25 years, Sharma worked at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, most recently as head of emerging markets and chief global strategist. 

IQ-EQ, the investor services group, named Matt Okolita as global head of outsourced business services. Okolita works with Mark Fordyce, regional CEO of the Americas. Okolita previously led Greyline Partners, a regulatory, compliance and governance consultancy which was acquired by IQ-EQ in November last year. He will report to Mark Fordyce, regional CEO, Americas.

CI Financial appointed Sarah M Ward to join its board of directors. She is a lawyer with more than 35 years’ experience of working in corporate finance. Ward recently retired from global law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where she was a New York-based partner in the firm’s banking group and co-chair of its legal opinion oversight committee. 

Participant Capital Advisors, a real estate investment firm working with wealth managers, appointed property market veteran Bernard Wasserman as president. Prior to joining Participant, Wasserman was managing director, capital development at Virtus Real Estate Capital, where he was responsible for brokerage, family office and registered investment advisor relationships in the US, Latin America and Europe. Previously, he was director of investment product origination at Citigroup Global Markets and senior vice president, structured fund products at HSBC Securities (USA), among other roles.    

DPL Financial Partners, a turnkey insurance platform for registered investment advisors, appointed Tiburon Strategic Advisors and Tiburon CEO Summits founder and managing partner Chip Roame to join its board of directors. Roame also serves as a member of the board of directors at Edelman Financial Engines, Facet Wealth, Allspring Global Investors, Lefteris Acquisition Corporation, and was formerly vice chairman of Envestnet. 

BNY Mellon Wealth Management added two figures to its Seattle office: Patrick Burke as senior private banker and Ben Kalman as senior wealth manager. Burke reports to Gary Lutz, regional director, West Region private banking and Kalman reports to Bo Lee, wealth management, team leader.

Key Private Bank appointed Jamie Reed as national head of sales. Reed, who is based in Columbus and reports to Joe Skarda, president of Key Wealth Management, brings nearly 30 years of wealth management experience to Key. Prior to joining Key, Reed served as the wealth management business regional director for Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia at JP Morgan.

Halbert Hargrove, a wealth management firm based in Long Beach, California, promoted the firm’s president and chief operating officer, J C Abusaid, to chief executive. The firm also promoted Cecilia Williams to COO and Kelli Kiemle as managing director of growth and client experience, while simultaneously reaching $3 billion in assets under management. Abusaid, who has been with the firm for 25 years, worked with Williams and Kiemle, who have each been with the firm for 15 years. 

Starboard Advisors, a Maine-based firm that is part of Kelleher Financial Advisors, named family offices figure Michael Ouellette as its president. Bart Weisenfluh, founder of Starboard Advisors, became its chief executive. Ouellette has been a family office executive for the past 24 years representing over $4 billion of family assets. He started his career with a four-generation family office based in Portland, Maine, serving as executive vice president and treasurer for Dexter Enterprises from 1997 to 2014. His most recent position from 2014 to 2021 was chief executive of Ten Mountain Capital, a family office located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Aaron Wealth Advisors, a firm based in Chicago, appointed Alexander Fedynsky as a managing director. And the firm, led by former Goldman Sachs private wealth advisor Gary Hirschberg, opened a new West Coast office based in Newport Beach, California. Fedynsky, became region head for the West Coast office. Prior to joining Aaron, he was a vice president at Goldman Sachs, Ayco Personal Financial Management in California, for over 16 years.

Vestmark, which provides portfolio management tools and trading software, named former Vanguard and Charles Schwab figure Agnes Hong as chief investment officer and head of advisory services for Vestmark Advisory Solutions (VAS), Vestmark’s registered investment advisor. She reports to Vestmark chief executive Mike Blundin. With more than 20 years of experience in asset management and technology, Hong is a CFA® Charterholder, a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and holds the CFA UK Level 4 Certificate in ESG Investing. Hong previously worked at Vanguard, where she served as senior portfolio manager and a member of the senior leadership team at Equity Investment Group.