May was a busy month for the North American wealth management industry, with names such as UBS, Glenmede, Baird and BNY Mellon featuring in the stories of moves and appointments.

BNY Wealth Management appointed Camille Alexander as head of sales, investor solutions, a newly-created role. Alexander reports to Jamie Lewin, head of product strategy and performance management, and Helen Nugent, wealth management national director of sales and marketing.

Alexander most recently served as regional president of the Washington area and was succeeded by Karen Wawrzaszek. Alexander is responsible for achieving new business growth for BNY Mellon Investor Solutions and will partner with Christine Gill, wealth management head of strategy and institutional distribution, to identify new business opportunities across the BNY Mellon enterprise with asset management, asset servicing, Pershing and others. Alexander joined BNY Mellon Wealth Management in 2013 as a senior client strategist and was promoted to lead the DC market as regional president in 2020. 

The firm named Bryce Walker as senior client strategist. Walker is based in Tampa, Florida, and reports to the market president, Sean Maguire. Prior to this role, Walker worked at PNC, where he was vice president of asset management and capital advisory. Before that, he was a business development officer for asset management and an associate financial analyst at PNC.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management added three staff to its Denver office. It appointed Marie Dawson as senior fiduciary specialist, Steve Starzec as client strategist and Matt McConaty as associate client strategist. They all report to Eunice Kim, Colorado market president.

Dawson manages client relationships, exercises fiduciary discretion, pursues new business opportunities and enhances and expands the firm’s relationship with the trust and estate planning community. Starzec advises high net worth individuals, families, and organizations by providing wealth advisory and planning services, including solutions that bridge business and personal goals, private banking, investment management, financial planning, and trust administration.

McConaty is responsible for business development as well as providing financial counsel to high net worth individuals and organizations in the Denver metro community.

Dawson has more than 25 years of experience, including two years at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, having most recently served in the Las Vegas office as senior wealth manager - fiduciary specialist. Starzec has more than 30 years experience. Prior to this, he served in various leadership roles including the Boulder regional manager at MidFirst Private Wealth Management and the Western Rockies market leader at Bank of the West Wealth Management. McConaty, with 13 years of financial services' experience, joined from Heartland Financial USA, Inc, where he served as a portfolio manager. Matt also worked at W G Nielsen investment bank and UBS Wealth Management.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management named Chad Van Den Top as senior client strategist. He will advise ultra-high net worth families, business owners, private equity and hedge fund principals, and their family offices with their comprehensive wealth structuring advice, including management of concentrated stock positions, estate planning strategies and family governance. Van Den Top also works closely with foundations and endowments. Based in Boston, he reports to Vicary Graham, regional president of the New England region. Prior to this, Van Den Top worked at Northern Trust where he was a wealth strategist in San Francisco, focused on providing wealth structuring advice to the firm's ultra-high net worth Silicon Valley clients and prospects. Prior to this, he was a trust and estate specialist with Merrill Lynch’s trust company.

Wealth advisor Tom Chaney rebranded his two offices, one in Las Cruces, New Mexico and one in El Paso, Texas, to Carson Wealth. He has been in the industry for more than 30 years, and manages more than $50 million in assets. Chaney maintains an active majority ownership in his practice and shares in the responsibility for all strategic business decisions and operations in the Las Cruces and El Paso offices.

Former JP Morgan figures and brother-and-sister business partners Christian Habitz and Sarah Damsgaard launched The Invictus Collective, working with Dynasty Financial Partners. They oversee more than $1 billion of assets under advisement. The Invictus Collective is an independent registered investment advisor with offices in Milwaukee, Chicago and Miami. 

Habitz, who co-founded The Invictus Collective with his sister, Sarah Damsgaard, has more than 25 years of diverse financial markets and investing experience. Prior to his Invictus business, Habitz was a managing director for five years with JP Morgan. His experience also includes working with Credit Suisse’s private banking group and Morgan Stanley’s private client group.

With more than 15 years of investment experience, Damsgaard was previously an executive director with JP Morgan and worked with the private banking group at Credit Suisse. Prior to Credit Suisse, she was a principal and shareholder at Reinhart Partners, where she was the head of the firm’s institutional business. Damsgaard began her career in finance at MFS Investment Management, educating financial advisors on offshore investments.

JTC, the global provider of fund, corporate and private client services, has appointed Marcel Imery as business development director for the US and wider Americas markets. Based in JTC’s New York office, Imery provides structuring services to JTC’s private and corporate clients, with a particular remit to help drive growth across the US and Latin American markets. A lawyer recognized in industry publications such as Best Lawyer, Chambers and the Legal 500, Imery has also founded, financed and scaled start-ups in Venezuela and Chile, awarded by Wayra and Startup Chile, two of Latam’s most prominent incubators. He has worked in international tax, corporate and transactional law and advised high net worth individuals for more than 30 years. 

Baird, the US financial services group, appointed Melanie Schmieding as a director of Baird Family Wealth in its private wealth management group. Schmieding joined from Wells Fargo’s private wealth business formerly known as Abbot Downing. At Wells Fargo she managed the firm’s largest and most complex individual relationships, leading a team of specialists that served both internal and external clients.

Wealth management firm Glenmede set up an office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led by Mark Busher. Busher, regional director, reports with his team to Adam Douberly, director of expansion markets for private wealth at Glenmede. Busher brings more than two decades of wealth management experience to Glenmede following a 20-year career at PNC. He most recently was managing director at Hawthorn, PNC Family Wealth. 

Glenmede appointed David D Legeay as managing director and senior portfolio manager. He is based in Glenmede’s Cleveland office, and will report to Lawrence Hatch, regional director of Ohio. Legeay provides tailored investment advice to individuals, families, endowments and foundations.

The firm also, appointed Linda Manfredonia as regional director of its Wilmington office and president and chief executive of The Glenmede Trust Company of Delaware. She reports to Susan Mucciarone, executive director of private wealth. Manfredonia took over from Geoff Rogers, who retired following 22 years as the head of the Wilmington regional office. Manfredonia has had a 30-year career at PNC, where she held leadership positions, including chief fiduciary officer, chief risk officer and chief administrative officer for the bank’s asset management group, and, prior to that, regional managing director for the Greater Philadelphia area.

With almost 30 years in the industry, Legeay joined Glenmede from Hawthorn, PNC Family Wealth, where he most recently served as managing director of the Ohio market. Prior to joining Hawthorn, Legeay worked at KeyBank National Association. 

Gold Family Wealth, a Westport, Connecticut-based firm, added Daniel Armas as managing partner and wealth advisor. Armas expanded the firm’s geographical footprint by opening an office in Red Bank, New Jersey. He has 18 years’ industry experience. 

Advisor Group recruited Azoze Johnson & Associates to join its network in the US. The Spokane, Washington-based firm, which includes three financial professionals, oversees $168 million in total client assets. Azose Johnson & Associates joined via its subsidiary and network member firm Royal Alliance Associates. Partners Maynard M Azose and Amanda K Johnson, along with financial professional Nick R Fuller, support clients throughout the Spokane region and beyond with financial, retirement and estate planning, investment management, educational funding and social security analysis. The firm was founded by 30-year industry veteran Jill A Ruser, who partnered with Azose as part of her succession strategy before retiring in 2020. Azose now leads the firm along with Johnson, who joined the firm in 2018 and serves as its head of operations.

Schwab Charitable™, one of the big US providers of donor-advised funds and other philanthropic services, appointed Sam Kang, replacing Kim Laughton, who had previously announced plans to retire from the organization. Kang joined Schwab Charitable in 2018 and leads the service, operations and technology teams. Prior to joining the organization, he spent more than 20 years at TD Ameritrade where he served in a variety of leadership roles in strategy, technology and operations. He holds the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® designation, is an executive sponsor for the Charles Schwab Community Ambassadors Team in Westlake, Texas, and is part of the executive leadership team for the American Heart Association in Tarrant County, Texas. Laughton retired after nearly a decade as president.

Nasdaq-listed private markets investment management firm Hamilton Lane pushed into the European market, and named Ralph Aerni as head of European sales. Aerni has nearly 20 years of investment, business development and management experience – including as co-owner and chief investment officer of SCM Strategic Capital Management, which was sold to Mercer Private Markets in 2015. At Mercer, Aerni served as global co-CIO, chairman of the investment committee and business development in Europe. Most recently, he was the head of business development at a European investment management firm. 

Sanctuary Wealth welcomed Greenwich-based Harbor Asset Private Wealth to its network. Advising on approximately $280 million in client assets, the firm is led by Marti Marache, who has been with Morgan Stanley for the last 13 years. Marache has worked in the sector for more than 33 years.

Harbor Asset Private Wealth is a family business; the team includes Martache’s husband Mark Marache, who was also a financial advisor for 18 years at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in New York City. He camce out of retirement to join the practice. The third member of the team is nephew Herbert Marache IV.

Manulife Investment Management named Christoph Schumacher as global head of real assets, private markets. He is relocating to Boston in the US. Schumacher is responsible for defining the firm’s private real assets strategy and managing the operations and development, launch, and growth of investment solutions for clients across the globe. In his most recent position, he served as global head of real estate and managing director at Credit Suisse Asset Management.

Argent Financial Group, a fiduciary wealth management firm operating in the southern parts of the US, appointed Travis Gist to join its mineral management division. He is based in Fort Worth, working as a mineral manager, where he reports to David Luke, president of Argent Mineral Management.

Gist, who has more than 11 years of experience in the sector, was previously at Wells Fargo Bank in Fort Worth, where he had served as assistant vice president/oil and gas advisory specialist since 2014. In that position, he managed more than 150 accounts containing oil and gas assets across the country for high net worth private bank clients. He also served as the bank’s subject matter expert, managing the oil and gas assets held in estates, trusts and agency accounts.

Unified managed household platform business LifeYield appointed former Merrill Lynch head John Thiel to join its fiduciary board. Thiel already holds several executive engagements, sitting on the boards of Franklin Templeton, FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the V Foundation, Decker Communications, and his alma mater, Florida State University.

Tiedemann Advisors appointed Whitney Fogle Lewis as its new chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel. Lewis oversees all aspects of the firm’s regulatory and compliance functions. The post was previously held by Kevin Moran, who is chief operating officer and general counsel. Lewis reports to Moran.
During her seven-year prior career at Carlson Capital, Lewis served as the deputy chief legal officer, providing strategic and legal guidance to business leaders and investment professionals as well as performing regulated compliance functions on behalf of the firm’s UK office. Prior to this, she practiced at Vinson & Elkins and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.

Evercore Wealth Management appointed Alex Lyden-Horn as managing director, director of Delaware Trust Services and trust counsel at Evercore Trust Company. Lyden-Horn previously worked at Christiana Trust Company of Delaware, a wholly-owned subsidiary of WSFS Financial Corporation, where he served as president. Prior to joining Christiana Trust in 2015, he served as trust counsel to Commonwealth Trust Company for two years and, earlier, practiced as an attorney. Lyden-Horn is based at the Wilmington, Delaware offices of Evercore Trust Company. He earned a BA with distinction from Yale University, and both a JD and an LLM in taxation from the James E Beasley School of Law at Temple University. He is a member of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars, and the Delaware bar.

New York-based Drawbridge, a firm that provides cybersecurity software and solutions to the alternative investment industry, named Darrell Tucker as managing director, client services. Tucker brought more than 20 years of financial industry experience to his new job. Prior to Drawbridge, he was MD of sales and business development at Siepe, a cloud and data analytics provider. Prior to this, Tucker spent 10 years at Abacus Group, where he began as director, technical services before being elevated to MD, business development. Earlier in his career, he was the head of US project management for options-IT and technical director for BNP Paribas’s prime brokerage division in the Eastern Region.

Partners Capital, the global outsourced investment office, announced that Suzanne Streeter and Alex Band had taken over from Colin Pan as the firm’s global co-chief investment officers. Streeter and Band, who are partners at the firm, were previously the asset class heads of private equity and public equities, respectively. The duo joined chairman Stan Miranda, head of global macro and tactical asset allocation, Kamran Moghadam, and CEO Arjun Raghavan in the office of the CIO, which oversees the firm’s overall investment strategy and policies.

Streeter joined Partners Capital in 2015. Most recently, she served as head of private equity and real estate, leading the global research team responsible for manager selection and relationship management. Band joined Partners Capital in 2013. Most recently, he served as head of public equities where he covered long-only and long-short strategies and manager relationships. He has been responsible for several innovations in the public equities program, including a push into sector specialists across themes such as life sciences. 

Crestbridge, a global administration, management and corporate governance solutions business, appointed family office professional Karen Clark as a director. She is based in California. Clark has more than 30 years of experience advising families of wealth in all corners of the globe on matters of governance, succession, and family office operations. 

Raymond James brought in Richard Stern and Jeffrey Stern to Raymond James & Associates – the firm’s employee advisor channel – in Sarasota, Florida. The father-son duo operates as Stern Wealth Management of Raymond James. They joined from Robert W Baird & Co, where they previously managed about $220 million in assets for a variety of clients, including business owners, families and individuals, healthcare professionals and retirees.

Raymond James also appointed tech industry veteran Raj Bhaskar as vice president of technology strategy for the firm’s RIA and custody services arm, RCS. Bhaskar joined from E*TRADE, where he served as head of strategy for the product suite offered to independent financial advisors and the wealth management community. Prior to joining E*TRADE, he led application development teams at TD Ameritrade.

Raymond James welcomed financial advisors Martin Ferrara, James “Bubba” Helton, Jr, Justin Preissler and James McGee to Raymond James & Associates in Augusta, Georgia. The advisors joined from Wells Fargo Advisors, where they previously managed more than $468 million in client assets. Together, they operate as Cypress Wealth Group of Raymond James.

The firm brought in financial advisors Earl Silver, Ralph Liberatore, James Hack, and Anastasios Liosatos to its employee advisor channel. The advisors joined RJA’s Deer Park, Illinois, branch, which is managed by Chad Danforth, and is part of the Illinois Complex, managed by Brian Lampsa.

Advisor Group, the US network of wealth management firms, recruited Tor and Tyler Saile, a father-and-son hybrid wealth management practice with offices in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Barrington, Illinois, that oversees $150 million in total client assets. Both financial professionals joined Advisor Group through its subsidiary and network member firm Triad Advisors for brokerage services. 

Tor Saile has more than 20 years' experience in the wealth management industry, joining the independent channel in 2010, while Tyler Saile joined the practice in 2017. They specialize in investment management, retirement planning, estate planning, education planning and insurance consulting. Both financial professionals will continue to do business as Ironwood Family Wealth Advisors.

Montana-based D A Davidson & Co opened a new wealth management office in Grand Junction, Colorado, welcoming a four-person team of professionals with extensive financial services experience. The Squier & Martinez Financial Management Group, advisors with D A Davidson & Co, previously worked with Wells Fargo Advisors.

The group includes:
Cheryl Squier, senior vice president, financial advisor, worked in the financial industry for 30 years, including the past 10 years with Wells Fargo. She holds a business degree from Western State College. Brooke Martinez, associate vice president, financial advisor, has been in the business for more than 20 years, and worked with Wells Fargo for the past seven years. Clay Squier, financial advisor, served as a financial professional with Wells Fargo for three years. 
 

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Fiduciary Trust Company appointed two new officers: Michael Stephens as investment officer, and Sarah Grandfield, trust counsel - they are both vice presidents. Early in his career, Stephens co-founded a New York wealth management firm and later served in senior roles at institutions in the Boston area including Eaton Vance, Boston Financial Management, and Emerson Investment Management. He has also contributed to the launch of several businesses and served in an advisory capacity for a number of local start-ups.

Grandfield was previously at Verrill Dana where she was a partner in its private clients and fiduciary services group, advising high net worth individuals and families. She began her legal career as an associate at Choate, Hall & Stewart. 

Sensiba San Filippo, a San Francisco Bay area accounting and business consulting firm, appointed Tom Crotty, as practice leader, to expand its family office business. Crotty has more than 40 years' experience of serving family offices and family businesses. He has worked with multi-family offices, and businesses in the professional services, contracting, mortgage banking, distribution, and non-profit industries. Crotty received his MBA from UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management, and his BSC in finance from Santa Clara University. 

UBS Wealth Management USA, part of UBS, brought in a seven-person team managing $2 billion in client assets to its business in Newport Beach, California. 
The team, led by financial advisors Thomas J Nieto and Frederick D Grand Jr, serve high net worth individuals and families, entrepreneurs, and institutions. Other team members include John Hurford, CFA®, senior wealth strategy associate, Rebecca Zahabian, team administrator Laura Holland, senior client service associate David Q Kuang, CFP® and registered client service associate Victor Morales.

Lafayette Square, an impact-driven, minority-owned investment platform, appointed Ommeed Sathe as head of strategy. In this new role, Sathe leads various thematic impact-driven investment strategies within Lafayette Square.

Sathe was previously the head of the impact investment unit at Prudential, where he managed more than $1 billion across alternative asset classes and investment strategies. 

Informa Connect, the events business, appointed former ECHELON Partners managing director Mark Bruno as managing director of wealth management, a new role at the firm. Bruno builds out the firm’s wealth management media and event properties, which consists of WealthManagement.com, Inside ETFs and Inside WealthStack. Bruno brought more than 20 years of experience in the wealth management and asset management industries to Informa. Prior to ECHELON Partners, Bruno was MD and associate publisher at InvestmentNews.

Russell Investments appointed Kate El-Hillow as global chief investment officer and Kevin Klingert as president. Both serve on Russell Investments’ executive committee and report to chairman and CEO Michelle Seitz.

El-Hillow served in several leadership roles at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, specializing in portfolio management, trading, outsourced CIO and multi-asset investment solutions. She also spent eight years at JP Morgan Chase, where she worked in a dual capacity - in asset allocation as client portfolio manager and chief operating officer. As CIO based in New York, El-Hillow oversees all aspects of the firm’s investment division, including portfolio management, implementation and research. She replaced Pete Gunning, CIO since 2018, who will take on a new role as vice chairman and strategic relationships officer, reporting directly to Seitz and in charge of key client relationships and responsible investing practices.

Baird appointed Jim Galkowski as a director and financial advisor in a new branch in Rochester, Minnesota. He was joined by senior client specialist Jill Roux. Galkowski, who was previously at Wells Fargo, has three decades of industry experience and a client roster of around $482 million in assets under management. 

Argent Trust Company appointed Tom Stringfellow as chief investment strategist. Stringfellow came to Argent from Frost Bank, where he served as president and chief investment officer of Frost Investment Advisors and as executive vice president and chief investment officer of Frost Wealth Advisors. Stringfellow has worked in the wealth management sector for 31 years. In his new role, Stringfellow is based in the Argent Trust Company’s San Antonio office but serves as chief investment strategist for all of Argent Trust Company, including wholly-owned subsidiaries Heritage Trust Company in Oklahoma City and Ponca City, Oklahoma, and the AmeriTrust Companies in Tulsa. 

Argent Financial Group appointed Michael Faherty to join its New Orleans office as senior vice president of institutional services. Faherty, who served clients throughout South Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, reports to senior vice president and institutional services manager, Mark Milton. Faherty has more than 20 years of experience working with retirement plans, as well as investments for corporations and non-profits. He previously worked at Regions Bank, where he had been an institutional trust strategist/senior vice president since 2016 and an employee since 2003.

Rockefeller Capital Management added a team of advisors to its team in Newport Beach, California. The Oglevee and Devine Group previously worked at UBS.

The team includes:
-- Stefan Oglevee, managing director and private wealth advisor (father to “Max” Oglevee below); 
-- Janna Devine, senior vice president and private wealth advisor; 
-- Stefan "Max" Oglevee, VP and private wealth advisor; 
-- Justin Medeiros, associate VP and client service associate; and
-- Robb Lindell, associate and client service associate.