People Moves

Summary Of Wealth Management Moves In North America – March 2022

Editorial Staff May 9, 2022

Summary Of Wealth Management Moves In North America – March 2022

A roundup of the moves and appointments in the North America wealth management sector during March.

Glenmede, the US investment firm, appointed Nicholas A Warren as chief investment officer of Glenmede's Endowment & Foundation Management business. He succeeded Stephen C Lehman, who is retiring from Glenmede after more than 20 years. Warren reports report to Adam Conish, director of endowment and foundation management, and Peter Zuleba, director of investments.

Before this role, Warren worked for more than 10 years at Brandeis University, where he served as CIO for the institution’s endowment. 

Raymond James brought in father-and-son financial advisors David Vallie and Mitch Vallie to its employee advisor channel. They are based in Grand Blanc, Michigan. The advisors, who operate as Vallie Wealth Management of Raymond James, joined the firm from Merrill Lynch, where they previously managed $353 million in client assets. The team includes senior registered client service associate Michelle A Loney. 

The firm brought in financial advisors John Patat and Joel Gravina to Raymond James & Associates. Based in Naples, Florida, they operate as Focus Wealth Management of Raymond James. The team, which includes client service associates Stephen McLaughlin and Morgan Gatlos, previously managed approximately $175 million in client assets at Morgan Stanley, serving an assortment of clients, including individuals, families, business leaders and more.

Raymond James welcomed experienced financial advisor Stuart Scibetta to Raymond James Financial Services (RJFS) – the firm’s independent advisor channel, based in its Western region. Scibetta joined Raymond James and Crux Wealth Advisors, a partnership of independent advisors affiliated with RJFS, from Edward Jones where he previously managed approximately $118 million in client assets.

The business brought in financial advisor Lance Murphy to Raymond James & Associates, its employee advisor channel, in Houston, Texas. Murphy previously managed about $207 million in client assets with Edward Jones, serving a mix of clients, including high net worth families, business owners and executives. He joined one of the firm’s Advisor Select branches managed by Alex Reznikov in the Post Oak/Galleria area of west Houston.

Raymond James brought in financial advisors John Clower, S Reed Grant to Raymond James & Associate. The advisors joined Wasatch Capital Management of Raymond James, which operates offices in Cottonwood Heights and Park City, Utah – part of RJA’s High Desert Complex led by managing director Pam McComas. Clower and Grant both arrived independently from Wells Fargo Clearing Services, where they previously managed about $925 million and $100 million in client assets, respectively.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management named Kevin Davis as senior client strategist. Davis is based in Houston and reports to Adam Innerst, market president, Houston.

Cresset Asset Management appointed three wealth advisors from Bank of America Private Bank, Fidelity Investments, and JP Morgan Securities. The advisors are Chris Georgopoulos, who joined Cresset’s West Palm Beach, Florida, office; Thomas McKeown, CFP, who joined Cresset’s headquarters office in Chicago; and Beth Kytle Chandler, who joined Cresset’s office in Atlanta. 

Georgopoulos began his career in 2002 as an equity and options trader with AMR Capital. In 2010 he left the trade desk to head the sales team at Lowry Research Corp. Most recently, in 2017, he joined Bank of America Private Bank as a private client advisor and served as the lead advisor on a large book of ultra-high net worth clients. McKeown is based in Cresset’s Chicago office. Prior to Cresset, McKeown worked in various roles at Fidelity Investments. Chandler serves as a managing director and wealth advisor with Cresset’s Atlanta office. Previously, Chandler served as VP and wealth advisor with JP Morgan Securities.

Citi Wealth Services and Strategic Investments, part of Citigroup, appointed Eduardo A Martinez Campos as group head, reporting to Jim O’Donnell, head of Citi Global Wealth Management. Before this, he was chief operating officer at Citigroup and global head of investments for Citi Private Bank. He has extensive experience in the distribution of capital markets products to retail financial intermediaries, and has led Citi’s business integration efforts.

Joseph Roberts, head of the Wealth Advisory Services Group at Rockefeller Capital Management, was appointed to an expanded role that includes leadership responsibility for the firm’s family office advisors in the New York Metro area. 

Julie Min Chayet joined Fiduciary Trust International as wealth director, serving clients from the company’s New York office. Min Chayet previously served as managing director at Bank of America Private Bank, supervising trust officers and working with clients across Connecticut, Upstate New York, and Long Island.

Lafayette Square, an impact investment platform in the US, appointed a real estate investment industry figure Onay Payne as managing director for the asset class. Payne, who has worked in the real estate business for more than 25 years, was previously MD and portfolio manager for Clarion Partners, a firm overseeing more than $70 billion of client money. She joined that firm in 2003. She started her career in JP Morgan’s investment banking arm.

KeyBank Wealth Management appointed Solomon Schmidt as executive vice president and Key Private Client national executive. Schmidt is based in Madison, Wisconsin, and reports to Joe Skarda, president of KeyBank Wealth Management. Schmidt has worked in the wealth management arena for more than two decades. Most recently, he headed the central wealth management advisor division for US Bank.


CIBC added six senior figures to its private banking and wealth management teams. The joiners were Diane McNeal; Nicholas Gibson; Gregory Botshon; Bonnie R Metcalfe; Emily Wheeler, and Kevin Hauri.

Baird, the wealth, capital markets and investment banking group, added the Arnold & Tai Group to its wealth management office in Denver, Colorado. The three-person team came to Baird from Wells Fargo and include John Arnold, who will serve as a managing director and financial advisor and Jessica Tai, who serve as a vice president and financial advisor. They are supported by client specialist Lisa Peterson. 

Kraken, the digital asset platform, appointed Carrie Dolan, a financial services veteran in consumer fintechs and Fortune 500 companies, as chief financial officer. Prior to this, Dolan worked at Tradeshift, a digital payments and trade finance platform. Before that, she served in leadership roles at Lending Club, Metromile, Charles Schwab, and Chevron.

Allspring Global Investments recruited John Kenney has as head of strategic initiatives. Kenney reports to Joseph Sullivan, Allspring’s chair and CEO. Prior to this, Kenney served as an independent board member of a mutual fund platform and as an external advisor to Boston Consulting Group’s asset and wealth management teams.

Sanctuary Wealth said EverNest Financial Advisors, a firm based in Indianapolis, has chosen to partner with Sanctuary, which has acquired a minority position in the firm.  The two-person team is composed of managing partners Frank Esposito, CFA, and Niki Woodworth, CFP®. With Sanctuary as a partner, they plan to grow their firm both organically and through the acquisition of other advisory practices.

Frank Esposito is in his thirtieth year in financial services, having started as an intern with Merrill Lynch in 1992 before spending a decade working with institutional investors at Goldman Sachs and Strong Capital Management. After leading investment teams at both JP Morgan Private Bank and UBS Financial Services, he moved to being an independent registered investment advisor. In 2015, Esposito merged his practice with Windsor Wealth Management, which led to the creation of EverNest Financial Advisors. 

Managing director Niki Woodworth began her financial services career when she joined Windsor Wealth Management in 2017, where her roles included client service manager and director of client service. Since earning the Certified Financial Planner™ credential, she has been working with clients on retirement and estate planning, college funding, and debt and tax management. 

Chilton Trust opened a new office in Naples, Florida. The office, which is located at 850 Park Shore Drive, added to Chilton’s existing presence in Florida. Thomas Walsh, senior vice president of the Southwest Florida region at Chilton, runs the office.

Pitcairn, the family office, appointed former Abbot Downing senior figure Jay Goetschius as managing director and head of Florida as the business focuses on developing in the Sunshine State. 

At Abbot Downing, Goetschius was an MD working in Palm Beach and New York, where he served ultra-high net worth families and individuals. He has spent 30 years working with private clients on a range of family wealth management areas, including investment policy development, portfolio construction and asset allocation, risk management, and tax and estate planning.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management named Diana Kenneally as senior private banker for the New England region. Kenneally is based in Boston and reports to Vicary Graham, president, New England region. With 28 years of banking experience, Kenneally returned to the firm from Texas Capital Bank, where she most recently served as senior vice president, escrow and specialized services and deposit escrow relationship manager, senior vice president, Citizens Financial Group. She originally joined BNY Mellon in 2006 and served for 11 years in a variety of roles, including vice president, escrow sales specialist.

MRJ Capital, a $168 million registered investment advisor founded by Matt Greenberg, joined First Manhattan, another investment advisory house. Greenberg, a portfolio manager, along with his colleagues, continued to work with clients while using First Manhattan’s in-house research capabilities and operating platform. Greenberg has over four decades of experience advising individuals, families, retirement plans, and non-profit institutions. He founded MRJ Capital in 2013 and previously served as a managing director and investment analyst at Iridian Asset Management, where he spent over a decade co-managing institutional large-cap portfolios. 

Julius Baer appointed José Miguel Irarrazával del Campo as new head of its office in Santiago, Chile, and replaced James Walker who decided to pursue other opportunities outside the firm. Del Campo founded Queulat Capital, a real estate investment platform for institutional investors and family offices in Chile. Before that, he was general manager of a local family office and head of the investment bank of Credit Suisse in Chile. Among other moves, Rocio Paredes de Danessi joined Julius Baer as a senior relationship manager for subregion Mexico and Hispanic Americas based in Zurich. She joined from Credicorp in Lima, Peru, where she was a portfolio manager for the wealth management division. Ivan Toro joined Julius Baer from BTG Pactual in Bogotà Colombia. He supports the head representative officer, Eduardo Garcia, who joined the team at the beginning of 2021.

BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors named two of its team, Judy Lin Walsh and Nick Di Loreto, as partners. Judy Lin Walsh has specialized in working in complex family ownership systems to align the goals of the senior and next generations and to build effective and sustainable governance. She has clients spanning North America, Europe, and Asia. Walsh has written extensively for the Harvard Business Review, Trusts & Estates, and Family Business Magazine, with a focus on matters related to multi-generational family ownership and next generation development. Di Loreto has helped guide families in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to design their enterprise governance and plan for generational transition.

BNY Mellon Wealth Management made three senior promotions in the tri-state region and northeast. The promotions were: Katia Friend, market president and director of client strategy for New York Tri-State region, Stephanie Giroux, market president, Westchester and New Jersey, and Andrew Borner, market president, Greenwich, Connecticut and Garden City, New York. They each report to John Ippolito, regional president, New York Tri-State region.

Argent Financial Group appointed Janelle Palfreyman as vice president and trust officer. Palfreyman, based in Austin, Texas, focuses on developing and administering strategies for personal trust accounts. She reports to David Redding, market president for Austin.

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