The new leader takes the helm from a manager who has worked at Goldman Sachs for more than a quarter of a century. The Wall Street firm has been cranking up its wealth management game in recent years.

Goldman Sachs has named Nicole Pullen Ross as regional head of the bank’s private wealth management arm in New York, Bloomberg and other media reported yesterday.

Ross is joining the New York division following her role as head of the Mid-Atlantic region, where she has overseen offices in Philadelphia and Washington since 2011. She also heads a Goldman initiative to handle wealth management for athletes and entertainers. Ross began her financial industry career at the Wall Street firm in 1998 and worked as a wealth advisor in the New York office for 13 years.

She succeeds Gary Giglio, who is stepping down from the position at the start of July. Giglio, who has worked at Goldman Sachs for 26 years, has led the New York division since 2007. He is leaving to focus on charitable causes, including LGBTQ and veterans’ issues, it was quoted as saying.

As FWR and other news services have noted, Goldman Sachs’ has been beefing up its wealth management operations; last year it acquired United Capital, for example. 

As reported in May this year, Goldman Sachs agreed to buy the 20-year-old US wealth management house Folio Financial, having started talks last year. The closing of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to take place in the third quarter of this year. Last July, it completed its purchase of United Capital Financial Partners for $750 million in cash, a deal that put the Wall Street titan into the HNW wealth management arena. Until that point, the firm’s wealth business was more focused on the upper cohort of ultra-HNW clients.