Director of advice Nowack to help structure plans for VisionQuest clients. VisionQuest Wealth Management has hired George Nowack, formerly a senior risk manager with Fannie Mae, as its director of advice. In this new position, Nowack is in charge of developing action plans and marshalling internal and external resources for the benefit of the Raleigh, N.C.-based firm's high-net-worth clients.

"George is exactly who we need, says Steve Peters, founder and CEO of three-year-old VisionQuest. "With his background and experience, he is able to provide perspective and balance for our clients and for our organization."

Risk manager

Nowack advised Washington, D.C.-based mortgage-market maker Fannie Mae on strategies to manage business risks associated with the funding, purchase, securitization and management of large portfolios of assets and liabilities.

In September 2008, the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, backed by the Treasury Department, took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, another intermediary in the secondary-mortgage space, to keep them from buckling under the weight of the subprime-mortgage crisis.

Before he joined Fannie Mae in 2005, Nowack was a management consultant with Jefferson Wells, and before that he was director of Horizon Bancorp's investment-management group. He began his career as a portfolio manager with Wachovia.

In addition to formulating action plans for VisionQuest's clients, Nowack will work with service director Jessie Hrivnak to help fulfill them.

A good time

Peters sees service and advice as vital components of VisionQuest's overall business strategy, along with lead generation and sales. "But it's not a linear, left-to-right relationship," he says. "Advice and service are closely related, and client referrals feed the sales pipeline."

For now, Peters handles lead generation and sales for the VisionQuest. He views these functions as a match with his personal skill set, but sees the need for further refinement of responsibilities. So a next step on the recruiting front will be finding a director of sales and marketing.

But Peters is torn about the timing on that. On one hand he feels VisionQuest can afford to take its time, as it did in identifying and recruiting Hrivnak, who joined the firm about a year ago, and Nowack. On the other hand, turmoil in the financial-service industry has created near-term growth opportunities. "This is a good time to be taking business away" from big-name players in the private-client space, he says.

VisionQuest recently launched a creative-financing arm to provide advice on sourcing and structuring capital raises between $2 million to $50 million. -FWR

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