W R Berkley Corporation made three senior hires within its newly-created high net worth personal lines business. Kevin Hogan was named senior vice president and chief operating officer; Susan Vella was named senior vice president of customer experience; and Christoph Ritterson was named senior vice president of marketing. Hogan, Vella and Ritterson will report to corporate senior vice president Kathleen Tierney, who recently joined to oversee the new business unit.

Nathan Stibbs was promoted to executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Triad Advisors. In this newly-created position, Stibbs will be responsible for areas including advisor recruiting, branch office expansion and advisor mergers and acquisitions. He will also oversee Triad's RIA and fee-based platforms.

Nicole Newlin was named president of Philadelphia, PA-based Efficient Advisors, the RIA, tunkey asset management provider and exchange-traded find firm. Newlin was previously a partner at Pathfinder Strategic Solutions, where she helped advisors in the areas of client experience and client acquisition.

Seth Waugh, former chief executive at Deutsche Bank Americas, is to become non-executive chairman at Alex. Brown when Raymond James completes its acquisition of Deutsche's private client services arm in September. By way of background, Raymond James Financial said it is buying Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management's US private client services arm in December 2015. In recognition of the unit's original founding in 1800 under Alex. Brown & Sons, advisors joining Raymond James will operate under the Alex. Brown brand once the deal has closed, it said at the time. In his new role at Raymond James, Waugh will focus on client and advisor relationships while helping drive Alex. Brown’s strategic direction.

Scott Schmid was named market leader for The Private Client Reserve of US Bank in San Diego, CA, succeeding John Zygowicz, who retired in late 2015. Schmid, currently a wealth management advisor and managing director at the PCR in St Louis, MO, will start the new role on May 9 and relocate to San Diego. He joined the PCR in 2010 and oversees around $3 billion in client investments, of which $300 million is in active foundation and charitable administration.

Merrill Lynch made two senior appointments in New England. Chris Bettencourt was named market executive for Boston, MA, having served as market executive for Hartford, CT, since 2010. Since joining Merrill Lynch in 2004, Bettencourt has served as associate director for the southern New England and upstate New York region, as well as complex director in Wisconsin. Shamus O’Rourke, who has been market executive for northern New England since 2014, will succeed Bettencourt as market executive for Hartford. O’Rourke started his career at Merrill Lynch in 1998, and has held a number of positions including sales manager for the New England division and regional sales manager for Heartland.

Philadelphia, PA-based Janney Montgomery Scott expanded its presence in the Midwest and Virginia by launching new offices in Cincinnati, OH, and Harrisonburg, VA. The Mossbarger Deimling Moler Financial Strategies Group, a team of three financial advisors and two private client assistants managing over $187 million in client assets, joined Janney’s Cincinnati office from Wells Fargo Advisors. Members of the group include: Jeffrey Mossbarger, senior vice president of wealth management; Drew Deimling, vice president of wealth management; Christopher Moler, vice president of wealth management; Lisa Willhoite, senior registered private client assistant; and Lydia Armstrong, private client assistant.

Meanwhile, the Lantz & Gochenour Investment Group, a team of two financial advisors and two private client assistants managing over $390 million in client assets, joined Janney’s Harrisonburg, VA, office - also from Wells Fargo Advisors. Members of this group include: Hugh Lantz, executive vice president of wealth management; Michael Gochenour, vice president of wealth management; Mary Aleshire, senior registered private client assistant; and Jacqueline Blosser, private client assistant.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management said it made a total of nine hires last month, spanning New York to California. In Jericho, Long Island, John Gatto, Kenneth Gatto and Matthew Hughes joined from Morgan Stanley. The Gatto Hughes Group had $675 million in AuM at their former firm. In Manhattan, NY, Mark Karstaedt also joined from Morgan Stanley, where he had $147 million in assets. Meanwhile in Pasadena, CA, Scott Uffelman joined from Morgan Stanley too, where he had $185 million in client assets. In Plano, TX, Mark French and Kevin Parrill moved over from UBS, where they had around $239 million in AuM. And lastly, Kirsten Tuzzo and Blaine Minton joined from Morgan Stanley in Boca Raton, FL, where their total AuM was $287 million.

The law firm Cole Schotz PC recruited Linda Snelling to lead its new office in Florida. Snelling and the tax, trusts and estates team work specifically with high net worth individuals, as do several other of the firm’s practice groups. She joined Cole Schotz from Sachs Sax Caplan, where she was a principal and chair of the estate planning and probate practice group.

Fine art specialist Sarah Court joined Alliant Insurance Services as a vice president serving high net worth clients globally. Court has experience working with wealthy individuals, celebrities and athletes to insure their homes, yachts, wine collections, private planes and other high-value items. Based in Miami, FL, she also provides consulting in the areas of life insurance, kidnap and ransom, event cancellation and other related solutions. She was previously director of the global fine art practice at an international insurance brokerage firm, advising on global corporate and private collections.

A new team called HighTower Boca Raton set up shop in the Sunshine State under the leadership of managing directors Chris Ure and Al Martinez. The team - comprised of former UBS employees - also includes director Jordan Rae, previously a financial advisor at UBS. Ure and Martinez previously held high-level roles at UBS Financial Services and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Ure also worked at EY and several entrepreneurial business ventures in Broward County, FL.

JP Morgan Asset Management's global real assets division brought in managing director and client portfolio manager George Ahl, focused on real estate in the Americas. This is a new position in which Ahl will be based in New York and report to Alexia Gottschalch, managing director and head of business development and client strategy for real estate Americas within the group. Ahl joined from Forum Partners, where he was a managing director. Before that, he spent over 16 years as a founding principal at M3 Capital Partners and has also worked at Crimson Capital, LaSalle Partners and Merrill Lynch Capital Markets.

Deutsche Bank appointed Pamela Root as global head of compliance and group chief compliance officer. She replaces Nadine Faruque, who left last month for “personal reasons.” Root will join from Citigroup where she was chief compliance officer for the global institutional clients group. She will assume her new London-based role in June. She reports to Sylvie Matherat, chief regulatory officer and member of the management board of Deutsche Bank.

The bank also appointed Peter Hazlewood as its new global head of anti-financial crime and group money-laundering reporting officer. He succeeds Ulrich Göres, who left the bank in January. For the past 28 years, Hazlewood has held several senior anti-crime positions at large financial institutions, including HSBC, JP Morgan, DBS and Standard Chartered. He has worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York and, most recently, Bahrain. Hazlewood will be based in Frankfurt and will also report to Matherat.

California-based City National added a team of five private bankers to its private client services division in Orange County. Chris Lee, Steve Stauff, Elisha Skip Torrance, Tom McNair and Teresa Spera all joined in a variety of roles to serve high net worth individuals and families, and professionals throughout Orange County.

Lee was named team leader and private client advisor, while Stauff and Torrance will also serve as private client advisors, and McNair and Spera as private client managers.The team, based in Irvine, will report to Carla Furuno, senior vice president and manager of City National’s Orange County’s private client services division.

Lee previously worked at One West Bank, which was just acquired by CIT, as a managing director of its private banking group; Torrance was a vice president and private banker at Morgan Stanley; Stauff was an associate vice president within Wells Fargo Advisors' investments arm; McNair joined from OneAmerica Financial Partners, which acquired City National’s 401 business in 2014; and Spera joined from Fidelity Federal Bank, which is now part of US Bank, in 2000. After spending several years in the commercial banking area, she moved to the bank’s PCS division as a lead credit officer in Century City.

Jay Henderson was elected to join the board of directors at Northern Trust following his retirement from PricewaterhouseCoopers on June 30. Henderson is currently vice chairman of client service at PwC, responsible for the firm's strategy across the Midwest, which includes offices in 13 states with 6,800 partners and staff. Previous roles he has held at PwC include managing partner of the Greater Chicago market; managing partner of the Cleveland office; and a US management committee member. He will be joining Northern Trust on July 18.

Wells Fargo, the US-listed banking giant, appointed Kristi Mitchem as president, chief executive and head of Wells Fargo Asset Management. Effective as of June 1, Mitchem will be in charge of a business holding more than $480 billion in assets under management in institutional separate accounts, mutual funds and stable value portfolios. Mitchem most recently served as executive vice president at State Street Global Advisors, part of Boston, MA-headquartered State Street, the financial services group. She replaces Mike Niedermeyer, who had served as head of WFAM from 1994 until his retirement in March after 28 years with Wells Fargo. Based in San Francisco, Mitchem will report to David Carroll, senior executive vice president and head of WIM.

JP Morgan Asset Management brought in Michael Bailey as managing director and national sales manager for the wealth management channel within its US funds business. It is unclear if this is a new role or if he replaced anyone. Bailey was formerly national sales director at BlackRock, responsible for the distribution of BlackRock mutual funds, iShares ETFs and other investments through its Merrill Lynch division. In his new role, Bailey will oversee two divisional managers and 25 client advisors who work with wealth management firms across the country, such as Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells PCG.

Columbia Pacific, which invests for wealthy and institutional clients, hired Stanford University’s Vera Minar to oversee Columbia Pacific Advisors and serve as CIO at Columbia Pacific Wealth Management. Minar most recently managed Stanford's absolute return and fixed income portfolios, which accounted for roughly a third of the university's overall endowment. Before that, she led asset allocation and strategy for the overall endowment portfolio for three years.

She started her career on the quantitative risk team at Ziff Brothers Investments in New York, followed by stints at EY and Barclays Capital in New York, before joining Stanford Management Co in 2006. Columbia Pacific Advisors, founded in 2006 and based in Seattle, WA, manages over $1 billion across a variety of strategies. Columbia Pacific Wealth Management, founded in 2011 and also based in Seattle, has over $2 billion in AuM.

Robert Shafir, chairman of the Americas at Credit Suisse, is planning to leave the Swiss bank at the end of June, media reports said. Shafir was chief executive of the Americas region and joint head of private banking and wealth management from 2012 until October 2015, when Credit Suisse’s CEO reorganized its leadership as part of an enterprise-wide change in strategic direction.

California-based Golden State Wealth Management, the hybrid RIA, named Ric Jurmu as its newest wealth manager. Jurmu has spent over two decades working at financial institutions such as Smith Barney and Wells Fargo Advisors. At Golden State, he will be based in Irvine, CA.

The insurance holding company W R Berkley Corporation took on Kathleen Tierney to oversee the company’s new high net worth personal lines business. Tierney most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of a similar division at another insurance group. 

George Sousoulas was appointed as senior vice president and branch manager of Stephens' private client group in Memphis, TN. Sousoulas was previously a SVP and branch manager at Wells Fargo Advisors and before that held similar roles at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America.

Fiduciary Trust Company International named John Dowd as its chief executive, replacing interim CEO William Yun. Yun, former president of Fiduciary Trust and a current board member, took the CEO reins from Henry Johnson in January of this year. A number of other high-level changes were also announced at the time.

Dowd, who will be based in New York, was previously executive vice president and senior managing director at Wells Fargo Wealth Management. In that role he oversaw the Northeast region, focusing on investment management, trust and estate, financial planning, custom credit, brokerage and insurance services. Before joining Wells Fargo, he was managing executive of BNY Mellon’s wealth management business spanning New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Wilmington Trust brought in Anne St Clair as a private banking team leader in in Iselin, NJ, working with clients throughout the Northwest. Through Wilmington Trust's wealth advisory team St Clair will also provide investment management, trust, family governance and family office services. Before joining Wilmington Trust, she spent three years a senior private banker at Wells Fargo, having previously spent 13 years at US Trust as a senior private client manager.

San Antonio, TX-based Covenant, the US wealth manager, named Jeff Gerold as director of business development - a new role at the firm. Gerold joins Covenant after 18 years at Boston-based Fidelity Investments – most recently as a vice president and charitable planning consultant.

Michael Flinn was hired as national sales manager for advisor trust services at Tulsa, OK-based BOK Financial, the $31 billion regional financial services holding company. Flinn was most recently a trust consultant within Wilmington Trust’s advisor solutions group and in his new role at BOK will be based in Phoenix, AZ. He has around 25 years of independent trust consulting and administrative experience overall. BOK Financial Advisor Trust Services partners with advisors and individuals or families with trust administration needs. Services provided include personal trust administration, specialty asset management and administration, probate management, and estate settlement and administration, among other services.

The Memphis, TN-based RIA Waddell & Associates became the 40th firm to join Focus Financial Partners, the network of fiduciary wealth managers. Waddell is the first Tennessee-headquartered Focus firm, with additional offices in Memphis and Nashville. It serves 875 households and institutions. 

Boston Private made a series of promotions as it implements a new leadership structure. George Schwartz, president of Boston Private Bank & Trust Company, took on the newly-created position of CEO of the Private Banking Group, reporting to Clayton Deutsch, chief executive of Boston Private.

James Brown and Torrance Childs were appointed as co-presidents of the Private Banking Group. These are newly-created roles in which they will report to Schwartz. Brown will continue leading Boston Private's commercial banking group while Childs retains his role as the company's national director of deposit management.

Schwartz, Brown and Childs are responsible for the overall strategic direction of the Private Banking Group. Alongside Corey Griffin, CEO of Boston Private Wealth - born from Boston Private's acquisition of Banyan Partners - together they will focus on delivering an “integrated private banking and wealth management experience,” the firm said. All four are based in Boston, MA.

Meanwhile, Gisela LoPiano and Robert Nentwig were promoted to executive vice president in the commercial banking group, with LoPiano overseeing the East Coast and Nentwig the West Coast. Nicholas Hofer -  the company's West Coast market leader - was promoted to executive vice president in the private client group. His time is spent across San Francisco and San Mateo, CA. LoPiano, Nentwig and Hofer are also charged with leading Boston Private's client development strategy.

The chief investment officer at Brinker Capital, the investment management firm, resigned with immediate effect. Jeff Raupp, currently senior investment manager, and Chris Hart, currently core investment manager, were promoted to senior vice presidents and have assumed leadership of Brinker Capital’s investment team on an interim basis. They will report to Chuck Widger, executive chairman. Meanwhile, Jason Moore, formerly managing director at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, is joining Brinker Capital on June 8 as chief administrative officer. A search is underway for a new CIO, the firm said.

Fidelity Investments assigned new roles to two of its senior leaders, and created a finance and brokerage operations team, as part of a planned executive transition at the firm. Gerard McGraw, currently president of Fidelity Institutional, was named chief financial officer of Fidelity and will lead the new finance and brokerage operations team. The move came as Alan Scheuer, Fidelity's CFO for the past nine years, is to retire at the end of the quarter. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Lagarce - currently president of Fidelity Institutional Asset Management – was named president of Fidelity Institutional, succeeding McGraw. He will report to Johnson and join Fidelity's operating committee.

Northern Trust Asset Management strengthened its outsourced chief investment officer business to support growth across its global family office, retirement and endowment and foundation segments. Lincoln Ellis was hired as a senior client investment officer for the global family office practice while the firm also added Jessica Hart and Dan Kutliroff to its retirement practice as leader and as a senior sales specialist respectively.

Hart, who has worked at Northern Trust for 16 years, will lead a team that manages $60 billion in global multi-asset programs for defined benefit pensions and defined contribution retirement plans. She succeeded John McCareins, who was appointed to lead asset management in the Asia-Pacific region.

Related to the new hires, Northern Trust said John Keshner, who has served as practice lead for both endowment and foundation and global family office clients, will focus solely on the E&F segment going forward, while Mark Maly will lead the global family office advisory practice. Additionally, Paul Partington will expand his role as a senior client investment officer to include both E&F and GFO clients.

Mary Haut was named as president and chief executive of Acadia Trust, Camden National Corporation's wealth management subsidiary. Haut will be based in Portland and lead all the firm's investment and trust services throughout Maine and New England. She joined from Citizens Private Bank, where she was senior vice president and market executive for the state of Massachusetts. Before that, she was senior vice president and division executive of the company's wealth management arm. Her additional experience includes senior wealth management roles at FleetBoston and Bank Boston . It is unclear if Haut replaced anyone in this role or if it is a newly-created position.

Dynasty Financial Partners, which works with independent financial advisors, expanded its international business, recruiting Javier Rivero as senior vice president of its global division, based in Coral Gables, FL. Rivero will oversee all matters related to the international business, which includes working with the firm's existing network advisors on international opportunities, collaborating with the business development team when profiling new teams, and overseeing transition and relationship management for all teams with an international focus. Rivero was previously president at Brickell Global Markets, a bank-owned broker-dealer working with clients in Latin America and the US. Between 2011 and 2014 he was a vice president and complex administrative manager at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Miami, FL.

Meanwhile, in related news, Miguel Sosa left Merrill Lynch to launch a new firm called Premia Global Advisors through Dynasty. Based in Coral Gables, FL, Premia Global Advisors works with high net worth families and institutions. The firm and its leaders have a particular focus on Latin America and Europe. Joining Sosa at Premia is Juan Landivar, manager of financial planning, and Eddy Park, a client relationship manager - both from Merrill Lynch. Vivian Velazquez joined the firm as chief compliance officer.

The insurance firm QBE North America intensified its focus on the high net worth market with two hires within its standard property and casualty department. Eric Shanks was appointed as senior vice president of HNW – a new role at the firm. Based in San Francisco, CA, Shanks will have national responsibility for the development and execution of QBE North America's HNW-focused personal insurance strategy.

The second hire was that of Guy Huntley, who joined as senior vice president of personal insurance underwriting, based in Chicago, IL. Huntley previously worked at ACE Private Risk Services and before that was a senior underwriting director at Fireman's Fund. Earlier still, he was European regional manager and regional underwriting manager at AIG Private Client Group. Shanks and Huntley will both report to Eric Pruss, senior vice president of personal insurance.

Wilmington Trust added to its wealth advisory team in Boston, MA, with the addition of Rick Tyson as a senior private client advisor. Tyson will work with high net worth individuals, families, entrepreneurs and business owners, as well as foundations and endowments throughout the Boston region. He was previously a private client advisor at US Trust in Boston and before that a senior vice president in the investment management and trust division of Boston Private Bank & Trust. He has also worked at State Street Global Advisors and Fidelity Charitable.

Focus Financial Partners welcomed the Denver, CO-based RIA Carnick & Kubik to its partnership. Brothers Nathan and David Kubik entered the independent advisory space in 2011, buying Carnick & Co from lead principal Craig Carnick, who now serves as president and chief compliance officer at the firm. Carnick & Kubik acquired two local firms in 2015 and 2016, and, as well as its Denver headquarters, has an office in Colorado Springs.