People on the Move: Spotlight on Mike Plunkett

As the broker-dealer community changes, dealing with through-the-floor commissions and the ballooning costs of compliance and back-office management, so must Firm58.

The Chicago-based financial management software company recently appointed Mike Plunkett to its board of directors, the company announced on Tuesday. The firm is building out its board of directors with an eye toward improving the way it develops middle- and back-office solutions for broker-dealers and other financial services firms.

Plunkett will bring more than 25 years of industry experience to the role, most notably as president of Instinet from 2002 to 2008. There, Plunkett focused mainly on handling trading, billing and other functions for large institutional clients. Firm58 develops Web-based solutions that help large financial institutions manage fees, commissions and payouts, including billing and soft dollar program management. The firm, however, could also be counted on to address the needs of large wealthy families and family offices.

“The same would apply to Firm58,” Plunkett said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “They have a handful of services for institutional clients that would be available to family offices, too.”

Watching costs is critical now, especially because revenue from commissions have been slashed so dramatically, down to cents on the dollar in some cases. “Brokerages pick up execution costs as a way of controlling those costs. It makes sense to do it,” Plunkett said.

Firm58 got Plunkett’s attention because it reminds him of entrepreneurs going out to reduce inefficiencies, and reduce costs of doing business, he said. Aside from serving on Firm58’s board, Plunkett serves on the board of Atlanta-based Strategic Sports Management, a sports agency business that represents professional basketball players in the National Basketball Association and in European leagues.

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Also on the move this week:

The CFP Board of Standards appointed Charles A. Moran as its new chair of the board of directors. He is currently a professor of business administration and accounting at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, where he has led several college and SUNY faculty senate committees and is past chair of the curriculum committee, director of the financial planning program and director of the Center for Collaborative Sustainability.

Melody Bryant has joined New York City-based C.L. Kemper Asset Management as a principal. She will work alongside founder and managing partner Carl Kempner to ramp up the firm’s long-short equity hedge fund platform.

JHS Capital Advisors, based in Tampa, Fla., appointed William R. Turner as chief supervision and risk officer. Previously, he operated a securities and insurance consulting practice. He retired from Allstate Financial Services LLC in March 2008 as one of 13 regional financial services leaders within the company.

WBI Investments, based in Little Silver, N.J., hired Mike Buchholz as national sales manager. He had been senior vice president and national sales manager for ING Financial Solutions, responsible for distribution, sales, and managing 60 regional vice presidents.

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