The investment manager has hired Justin Onuekwusi as chief investment officer.

Onuekwusi brings a twenty-year career between Aviva Investors, Merrill Lynch and LGIM.

Previously, he was head of retail investments EMEA at LGIM.

HSBC

The private bank has hired Aladdin Hangari as head of global private banking Middle East & North Africa (MENA).

Hangari will succeed Sobhi Tabbara, who is leaving HSBC in January 2024.

Hangari brings twenty years’ experience working at Credit Suisse, most recently as chief executive of Credit Suisse (Qatar LLC) and chief executive of Aventicum Capital Management Holding AG.

HSBC has also named Patrick D’Amico as global head of Qatar.

D’Amico joins from Credit Suisse, alongside Christian Hiller, Thomas Schaad and Simon Aeschlimann who join as relationship managers.

Further, the bank has named Kouroche Achtari as market head for International Switzerland.

Achtari also joins from Credit Suisse and will enhance coverage for Swiss-based ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients and family offices.

Roy Mironi joins from Deutsche Bank as HSBC’s new desk head of Israel.

Quilter Cheviot Europe (QCE)

The European branch of UK wealth manager Quilter Cheviot has hired 4 investment managers and a trainee investment manager to its Dublin office.

Sara Williams was relationship manager and Kevin Nealon was head of retail banking for Allied Irish Banks (AIB).

Cathal O’Donnel and Alan Breen join QCE as investment managers from Canor Fitzgerald, both holding senior investment manager positions.

Aoife Murphy has re-joined QCE as a trainee investment manager having previously been a financial adviser at Walfrid Private.

AJ Bell

The investment firm has appointed Mark Rendle as its product director for advised platforms.

Rendle has been with the company for fifteen years and previously was head of marketing for AJ Bell Investcentre.

Franklin Templeton

The investment firm has appointed Matt Harrison as head of Europe & UK distribution.

Harrison brings twenty-five years of experience and was previously co-head of Asia Pacific (APAC) at Franklin Templeton.

Prior to joining the firm in 2018, he held senior positions at Colional First State, Commonwealth Bank and ING Bank.

Due to Harrison’s new role overseeing Europe and the UK, Tariq Ahmad has been named head of APAC distribution.

Ahmad has twenty years’ experience in asset management and was co-head of APAC distribution.

Further, Sandeep Singh has been promoted to head of Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa (CEEMEA) and India distribution.

Previously, Singh was head of CEEMEA distribution, where he lead and developed the firm’s retail and institutional business in CEEMEA. His duties now oversee the Indian market.

Both Harrison and Singh will take over responsibilities held by former head of EMEA distribution, Julian Ide. He has been appointed vice chair, EMEA.

PGIM Investments

The company has recruited Dominick Carlino as global head of alternative investments.

Carlino brings over twenty years’ experience in alternatives distribution across asset and wealth management.

Most recently he was managing director head of alternative investments distribution at Merrill Lynch.

Nuveen

The global investment manager has appointed Kyrylo Sukhanenko as managing director, head of UK insurance.

Sukhanenko joins Nuveen following thirteen years at Blackrock, where he was co-head of business development for its UK insurance company.

Previously, he worked as an analyst within Merrill Lynch’s emerging market equity sales team.

Pensions for Purpose

The firm has named Richard Giles as senior director.

Giles currently works as advisory group member at Pensions for Purposw.

He has experience in UK pensions, including managing the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and as strategic partnership director for TPT Retirement Solutions.

Giles also worked at PwC for 11 years where he was partner and head of pension advisory services in the north, and over 17 years at Mercer.

Ogier

Ogier’s Henry Wickham head of estate planning, wills and probate in Jersey,  has been promoted to partner.

Wickham advises on Jersey trusts, foundations and estate plannings.

Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD)

The international law firm has appointed Michael Lewis onto its financial services regulation team.

He joins after six years at Osborne Clark, having previously worked at Norton Rose, Linklaters, Simmons & Simmons and Pinsent Masons.

Quintet Private Bank

The private bank has named Warren Hastings as group co-head of investment and head of portfolio management.

Hastings has spent 12 years at Credit Suisse and most recently was head of investment management, international locations at the firm.

The private bank has hired Anna Zakrzewski as group chief operating officer.

Zakrzewski served over two decades at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as managing director and partner. He will be based in Luxembourg and will work closely with Eli Leenaars, outgoing chief operating officer for Quintet.

Leenaars is retiring after four decades in executive roles for four different banks.

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)

The professional body has appointed Mandy Gill as its executive director of global learning.

Gill will join the CISI in late November from the Gambling Commission where she was director of industry and specialist knowledge. Prior to that she was director of compliance at Commission from 2018 to 2023.

Gill has experience in vocational education and regulation, working with Ofqual for three years, and professional services. She became a qualified solicitor in 1993 and worked at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Nucleus Financial Platforms

The platform company has hired Andrew Tully as technical services director.

Tully is a pensions expert and industry commentator. He has spent 35 years working in high profile roles, such as technical director at Canada Life and Pensions Technical Director at MGM Advantage.

He will be taking over Neil MacGillivray, who is retiring as head of the technical support unit after a 25-year career with James Hay and Nucleus.

Robeco

The international asset management company has named Nick King as head of its ETF platform.

King previously spent eight years at Fidelity. Before that, he spent nearly nine years at BlackRock where he was promoted to senior portfolio manager in ETFs.

WRISE Group

The multi-family office has hired Helen Lam as group chief operating officer and Gaven Koh as group head of risk and compliance.

Prior to joining WRISE, Lam worked at the Bank of Singapore Hong Kong branch on strategic business operations.

Koh has 12 years of experience in the private banking industry and led a team of analysists at Credit Suisse AG across Asia Pacific.

Atomos

The wealth firm has appointed Jonty Warneken as head of the Harrogate office.

Warneken previously worked at Sanlam for seven years until 2019, when he joined Brooks Macdonald.

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management (CGWM)

The wealth management firm has recruited David Blake as experienced investment director.

He joins as investment director for Rathbones and has previously held roles at Jupiter Asset Management, Bestinvest and Brooks Macdonald Asset Management.

Fidelity International 

The investment firm has named Talib Sheikh as lead portfolio manager across multi-asset income strategies.

Sheikh brings over 25 years of experience in the investment industry, most recently as head of multi-asset strategies at Jupiter Asset Management.

Sheikh succeeds Eugene Philalithis, who has announced his retirement in 2024.

The contractual terms between Quintet and BlackRock remain subject to final agreement, expected in the third quarter of this year. The terms of the agreement will not be disclosed.

The partnership will extend the investment capabilities of the Quintet Group, including its UK subsidiary Brown Shipley.

Under the terms of the MoU, BlackRock will provide the private banking group with access to an expanded set of investment tools, products and solutions. In the UK, Brown Shipley will draw upon a range of funds, launched exclusively for the Quintet Group’s clients, leveraging BlackRock’s scale.

It will also have access to Aladdin, BlackRock’s proprietary risk-management technology platform, which will be deployed to support risk management and reporting of Brown Shipley’s funds and discretionary solutions.

BlackRock will also provide advice on Quintet’s asset-allocation strategy, reflecting the investment objectives designed by the firm to meet the needs of its clients, including in the UK.

While retaining its open-architecture approach, Quintet will have access to an extended product range via BlackRock, benefiting from its support in the selection and monitoring of third-party managers.

‘Key driver’

Chris Allen, Quintet Group chief executive, said: “We are delighted to announce our intent to partner with BlackRock. We selected BlackRock because of the depth and quality of their investment expertise, the scale of their investment reach and the strength of their risk-management platform. All of that will facilitate the work of our investment specialists, complementing and enhancing our client proposition.

“Our decision to partner with BlackRock will support our ability to remain on the front foot of product and portfolio innovation,” he said. “That, in turn, will help us serve our clients even better – with increased reach, efficiency and flexibility – as we continually strive to deliver robust client outcomes.

“As today’s announcement demonstrates, we are focused on strengthening the foundation of our group to support sustained growth. That includes through our broader strategy refresh – a series of measures we will continue to implement consistently over the course of this year and 2024 – designed to create additional economies of scale, reduce organisational complexity and further enhance collaboration in service to our clients.

“Extending our investment capabilities, with BlackRock’s expertise, will prove a key driver of our journey to sustained profitability and long-term growth, as we seek to become an even more efficient firm, where client interests are at the heart of everything we do.”

The Luxembourg-headquartered group has hired Chris Allen as group chief executive, effective from 1 July 2022.

Allen was previously head of global private banking at HSBC.

He will replace Jakob Stott, who has decided to step down and will leave the firm following a brief transition.

Vam Funds

The investment manager has hired Brendan Dolan as sales director, according to the firm’s Linkedin page.

Dolan was previously at Quilter International, where he was global sales director.

Fairstone

The UK financial planning group has hired Peter Donaldson and Tean Hatt as group divisional directors.

Donaldson has spent the last 17 years at HSBC in retail and commercial financial planning positions and leading roles in wealth strategic transformation. He takes up the role of group divisional director of north and Scotland.

Hatt has over 25 years’ industry experience in financial services, which includes 15 years at Hargreaves Lansdown. He will be group divisional director for Midlands and east.

Carrick Wealth

The South African advice firm has hired appointed Twape Mtila as regional manager of its Malawi office.

He was recently business development officer at Old Mutual Investment Group Malawi.

IQ-EQ

The financial services provider has named Briony Sun as Chinese family office executive, based in Jersey.

She will support Chinese-speaking private clients living in or planning to relocate to the UK, particularly London, and those looking to establish a Jersey trust.

Navigation Wealth Management

The Yorkshire-based financial advice firm has appointed Paul Scott as client relationship manager.

Scott was mostly recently part of the premier relationship team at Barclays Bank.

First Sentier Investors (FSI)

The global investment manager has named Ray Cullivan as head of FSI Ireland.

Cullivan replaces Adrian Hilderly, who is retiring later this month.

He joins from Gam, where he was most recently head of Gam in Ireland.

Endowus

The Singapore digital wealth manager has appointed Sean Wong as its head of investments, and Min Axthelm as its director of research.

Wong joins from Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia.

Axthelm joins from Morgan Stanley in New York, where she was lead analyst with its wealth management global investment office, overseeing the due diligence process from inception to completion for US equity strategies and mutual funds.

J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM)

The active asset manager has named Nikolaos Dimakis as a senior data scientist.

He joins from Federated Hermes, where he was a quantitative analyst.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This news comes several months after Quintet Group announced that it would discontinue its banking activities in Switzerland.

In connection with the wind-down, Quintet’s current private banking clients will have the opportunity to transfer their assets to PKB and be managed by a team of private bankers located in Zurich.

PKB said in a statement on 20 December 2021: “The agreement further proves PKB’s commitment to strengthening its local presence in Zurich, a core market since the bank’s early establishment in 1958.”

Swiss banking group PKB has four offices including Lugano, Zurich, Geneva and Bellinzona.