The latest senior wealth management sector moves in North America.

Macquarie Asset Management
Macquarie Asset Management has appointed Marcella Sivilotti (pictured below) as global wealth chief operating officer, adding to the senior team of a business that is building out its private markets offering for the wealth channel.

Marcella Sivilotti

Sivilotti  has joined from PGIM, the investment management arm of Prudential Financial, where she spent 11 years, mainly as chief strategy officer. In that role she led strategy and execution of global growth opportunities across public and private asset classes, including M&A. She began her career at McKinsey & Company.

Her hire follows a series of recruits to MAM’s global wealth platform across sales, investment specialists, product, marketing and fund operations. Much of that expansion has been in the US, where the firm is seeking to deepen relationships with wealth management firms and financial advisors.

Sivilotti will work alongside Kimberly LaPointe, head of global wealth at MAM.

“We see significant opportunity to help advisors enrich client portfolios with the inclusion of private markets solutions,” LaPointe said.

MAM, best known for infrastructure investing, managed $517.9 billion in assets as of June 30, 2026. It is part of Macquarie Group, the Sydney-based financial services group, which employs more than 19,100 people in 30 markets and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. In 2025, Macquarie agreed to sell its US and European public investments business to Nomura, sharpening MAM’s focus on private markets.

Alternative asset managers have spent the past several years competing for distribution in the private wealth channel. Firms such as Blackstone, KKR and Apollo have built dedicated wealth teams and launched evergreen and semi-liquid vehicles for individual investors, as advisors put more client money into private assets.

Sterlington
Sterlington, a New York-based law firm, has hired Fran Mehaffey as an estate and fiduciary accountant in its private wealth practice. He has joined from Fiduciary Trust International, where he was manager, tax services.

Mehaffey prepares and reviews individual income, gift, estate, trust and private foundation tax returns. He also handles returns for charitable remainder unitrusts, charitable remainder annuity trusts and charitable lead trusts, and works with clients on tax planning. He is an Enrolled Agent, authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS and state tax authorities.

His hire takes the Private Wealth team to 19 people. The team advises ultra-high net worth individuals, family offices and closely held businesses on estate planning, wealth transfer, tax strategy and succession. It is based mainly in Philadelphia and serves clients nationwide.

Daniel Cooper, partner and head of the practice, said Mehaffey’s experience with charitable trusts and private foundation returns “fills a real need for our clients.”

Sterlington built the practice quickly. The firm hired three private wealth partners from Morgan Lewis, among them Cooper, to open a Philadelphia office in August 2025, and further arrivals from Morgan Lewis the following month brought the team to 15. In February this year it added an associate and two more estate and fiduciary accountants

Withers
Todd Angkatavanich has rejoined Withers, the London-headquartered law firm, as counsel in its US private client and tax team. He is based in the firm’s New Haven, Connecticut, office.

Angkatavanich was a partner at Withers from 2005 to 2017 and co-headed its US private client and tax group. He left to become a principal in the private client services practice of EY’s national tax department and joined McDermott Will & Emery as a private client partner in New York in 2022. Earlier in his career he worked at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, now part of Dentons, and Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke.

He advises high net worth families and family offices on multigenerational wealth transfer and business succession. His work covers grantor retained annuity trusts, sales to grantor trusts, family limited partnerships, preferred “freeze” partnerships, carried interest transfer planning and family office structuring. He also advises on transfer tax issues under Chapter 14 of the Internal Revenue Code, which he teaches on the Heckerling LL.M. in Estate Planning program at the University of Miami School of Law.

Alongside client work, Angkatavanich will help train the firm’s junior private client lawyers and run education programs for industry professionals. Withers said he played a similar role in training associates and recruiting during his earlier spell at the firm.

Ameriprise Financial, Raymond James
Ricardo Baptiste, a private wealth advisor, has rejoined Ameriprise Financial’s independent channel in Plantation, Florida, after six years at Raymond James. He brings $193 million in client assets.

Baptiste spent 23 years at Ameriprise Financial before moving to Raymond James in 2020. His practice, Wealth Investment Group, which will move with him, includes financial planning assistant Zachary Rosen and client service specialist Josie Felix. 

His practice will be supported locally by Sabrina Sabate, franchise field vice president, and Michael Barker, regional vice president.

Baptiste said Ameriprise’s financial planning capabilities, technology and leadership’s attitude toward independent advisors shaped his decision to return.

Ameriprise added 79 experienced advisors in the third quarter of 2026. It also completed the transfer of 258 advisors from Huntington Bank through its financial institutions channel, with $28 billion in client assets moving through early 2027.