People on the Move: Spotlight on Glovista Investments

Glovista Investments, an emerging markets investment management firm, has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch veteran Enrique Figueroa as a managing director of wealth management and equity research for the U.S. West Coast and Mexico regions.

Figueroa, who in previous roles served as an international wealth advisor at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, joins Glovista as the firm expands its presence in California. Glovista said in a press release Tuesday that Figueroa would manage its new San Francisco office.

Also, in this capacity, the former chief investment officer and senior wealth manager at Sand Hill Advisors will also support Glovista’s CIO and co-founder Carlo Asilis with equity research as the Jersey City, N.J., based firm continues to grow in the “institutional emerging market equities asset management division,” the statement said.

Asilis added in his comments that Figueroa’s future contributions to the division will help “secure a leading position for Glovista's emerging markets equity strategy for years to come.”

Evidence of this expansion can be seen back in June when the nearly $164 million City of New Haven Employees’ Retirement Fund Board selected Glovista for a new $5 million emerging markets small-cap mandate with the Connecticut-based plan.

Prior to his Sand Hill role, Figueroa was also a first VP at Merrill Lynch and held similar positions at Oppenheimer & Co., and HSBC James Capel, the statement said.

Currently, Glovista has offices in Miami and San Mateo, Calif. Collectively, its management team, which includes Asilis and co-founder Darshan Bhatt, “possesses over 50 years of academic public sector and investment experience in global markets.”

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Also on the move this week:

BNY Mellon Wealth Management hired Robert Pitti as a senior director of portfolio management and Leigh Wasson as a senior director for its San Francisco office. The company said that this is the first step in a plan to add eight more professionals to the office by the end of the year. Additionally, Dustin Dippel, who has been with the company since 2007, was promoted to portfolio manager. Pitti was a partner with Argus Capital Management. Wasson was a regional managing director with Citi Private Bank.

Citi Private Bank hired William Goettert and John Entenberg as managing directors and private bankers in the company’s Boca Raton, Fla., office. They will report to Mark Maller, the head of Citi Private Bank in Florida. Both Entenberg and Goettert were senior vice presidents and international financial advisors for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.

Chicago-based Harris has hired Mark Mitrovich and Katie Aeschliman as a vice president and senior relations manager, respectively. Mitrovich will be based in Chicago, while Aeschliman will operate from Indianapolis. Greg Bins, a senior vice president of institutional markets added that by increasing the size of the banking team, Harris can now provide additional expertise and resources to its clients. Mitrovich’s experience includes the last 10 years as deputy city treasurer for Chicago. Aeschliman was most recently with KeyBank, where she was a vice president and relationship manager for the public sector in Indiana. Harris is a unit of BMO Financial Group.

Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. hired Philip H. Sanford as an executive vice president of strategy and performance measurement.  Sanford, 56, was a principal at Port Royal Holdings LLC, a private equity firm. Most recently, he was president and chief operating officer of Value Place LLC, an extended stay hotel chain.  

Man Group, a New York hedge fund firm, hired Luke Ellis to run its fund of funds business. Ellis, who was managing director of fund of hedge funds firm Financial Risk Management until 2008, will replace Herbert Item as head of Man Group's $14.2 billion multi-manager business, a unit the company formed the business last year through the merger of Swiss-based RMF with Glenwood, another fund of funds business. Ellis works for GLG, the fund manager Man is in the process of buying, as non-executive chairman of its multi-manager business and manager of its Multi Strategy fund. Before he joined FRM in 1998, he was head of JPMorgan's global equity derivatives and equity proprietary trading units.

Neuberger Berman promoted John E. Lambert to West Coast regional director of its wealth management business. He was a senior vice president. In his new role, Lambert, who will be based in San Francisco, will be responsible for strengthening Neuberger Berman’s presence in the western U.S. and for driving its efforts to serve the wealth management needs of high net worth clients in the region. He replaces Scott Marantz, who has left the firm. Lambert has worked for Neuberger Berman for two years, most recently as a senior wealth advisor for the West Coast region. Before joining the firm, he worked for KCM Investment Advisors, an independent investment management firm, where he worked for seven years.

Scout Investment Advisors Inc., a Kansas City, Mo., unit of UMB Financial Corp., hired David Lubchenco as an executive vice president of sales, marketing and client services. In this new role, he will manage sales and distribution, product development, marketing and client services, reporting to Andrew Iseman, Scout’s newly hired chief executive officer. Lubchenco was a member of the management committee and managing director of institutional sales for Transamerica Investment Services in Denver. Before that, he worked for Janus Capital Group in a leadership role for the alternative distribution group.

USAA hired Kevin O’Fee as an assistant vice president of retirement strategy, a newly created position. He was vice president of retirement strategies and innovation for Lincoln Financial Group. Before that, he worked at New York Life Investment Management and UBS PaineWebber. O’Fee will be responsible for ensuring USAA members have access to the right mix of financial planning, investment management, and insurance and annuity products to meet their retirement planning needs.

 

 

 

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