People on the Move: Spotlight on James D. Alfred

It is one thing for a registered investment advisor to buy an investment-planning product to streamline operations at his or her practice. Smoothly integrating that product is often a much bigger production.

Asset Dedication, a firm that provides subadvisory services for RIAs, recently hired James D. Alfred as manager of advisor solutions. In that role, Alfred will ensure that the company’s clients will smoothly integrate Asset Dedication’s services into their practices.

Asset Dedication expects to see significant growth in its client base, so the company is shoring up its commitment to having a professional act as a sort of concierge in that integration process, Brent Burns, president of Asset Dedication said in an interview on Wednesday.

“When they bring on a new product solution, no matter what it is, integrating that is the biggest challenge,” Burns said. “There are new paper work and [there are] data feeds. It is not the same-old, same-old.”

Asset Dedication has 21 RIA clients, and about 20 more are in various stages of signing up with the firm. Alfred specifically fit the bill for the company’s expanding business, because he has at least a decade of experience helping firms upgrade their investment performance reporting software.

Alfred had been a vice president at Black Diamond Performance Reporting, where he led the expansion of the company’s western region in sales, marketing and relationship management to independent financial advisors, wealth managers and all major custodian relationships.

For his part, Alfred says he was drawn to Asset Dedication because its products and services are rooted in academia, not sales driven. “I were to invest parent’s money, this is where I would be,” Alfred said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “I think we’ve seen from the past few years what the market can do. Investors want safe, predictable strategies.”

Alfred said he expects to add two or three more professionals to the advisor solutions team in by yearend.

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Also on the move this week:

Gemini Fund Services hired Britt Averett as a client services manager. The company also hired David Jurczak as a senior sales and distribution consultant at Northern Lights Distributors, Gemini’s sister company and a mutual fund distributor. Averett was an associate vice president in the client development group at Ivy Asset Management Corp., based in New York City.

JHS Capital Advisors added Frederick J. Vetter as chief compliance officer. He had been vice president of compliance and chief compliance officer of Dewaay Financial Network, an independent broker dealer.

Ridgeworth Investments, which is based in Atlanta, appointed Bob Kuberski as a national sales manager for the retail advisor channel. As part of his role, he will build a team of five to seven wealth consultants, to primarily call on advisors affiliated with broker-dealers and registered investment advisors. Kuberski is used to working with in a team environment. Before joining RidgeWorth, he was a regional vice president for Invesco. Before that, he played professional football for the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots, and worked for Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor in the off-season.

 

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