On the Move
Long Moves to Board Chairman
Randy Long, CEO and founder, SageView Advisory Group
SageView Advisory Group CEO and founder Randy Long stepped into the role of board chairman, September 1, as the firm continues expanding from its retirement plan advisory roots into wealth management.
John Longley, formerly head of private wealth for the defunct Silicon Valley Bank, took on the CEO role to continue driving that expansion, the firm announced, also stating that, as chairman, Long will concentrate on strategy and growth planning. He most recently was president of SVB Private.
Long founded SageView, headquartered in Newport Beach, California, in 1989 as a retirement plan advisory, building the practice to its current pool of 2,100 retirement plan clients representing about 1.7 million participants and $170 billion in plan assets.
In 2021, private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners took a majority stake in SageView with a goal of expanding its wealth management practice through acquisitions and organic growth. Since that time, the firm has made nine transactions, which helped build its wealth management division to $4 billion in client assets.
Alera Retirement Adds 2 Experts
Bryan Hissong, senior retirement plan consultant
Matt Rafeld, director of financial wellness
Insurance and financial services firm Alera Group hired Bryan Hissong to extend the firm’s reach to large-company defined contribution, defined benefit and nonqualified retirement plans.
Hissong, formerly of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., will serve in a national role as senior retirement plan consultant. He brings a background in both recordkeeping and retirement plan sales with experience specifically in developing pension de-risking strategies and building large-market sales teams.
Alera’s retirement plan services division also hired Matt Rafeld for a newly created role as director of financial wellness, part of a push to broaden plan services. Rafeld comes from Edelman Financial Engines, where he was director of financial wellness. Both men report to Christian Mango, Alera’s executive vice president and national practice leader of retirement plan services.
Voya Expands Its Wealth Team
Holly Monday, assistant vice president, Voya Financial
Shelly Nolfi, assistant vice president, Voya Financial
Voya Financial appointed Holly Monday and Shelly Nolfi to the newly created positions of assistant vice president for client management and expansion on the firm’s retirement products wealth solutions distribution team. They will focus on strategic growth in the emerging, mid-market, large and government market segments.
Monday came from Fidelity Investments, working most recently as a vice president and managing director. She has experience in sales, strategic planning, business development, relationship building and customer service.
Nolfi joined Voya eight years ago, most recently serving in the client engagement division as a senior director addressing strategic planning and service delivery.
The positions allow Voya to develop its scale and workplace benefits and savings products, “including solutions such as an entrance to the [health account solutions] market, managed accounts, [etc.],” said Sheila McCullough, senior vice president, wealth solutions client engagement leader.
2 Firms Appoint New CIOs
Olaolu Aganga, U.S. CIO, Mercer
George Maris, CIO, Principal Financial Group
Mercer named Olaolu Aganga as U.S. chief investment officer and a partner. Aganga reports to Hooman Kaveh, Mercer’s global CIO, and joined the leadership team for the firm’s U.S. outsourced CIO practice.
In her new role, she will be responsible for implementing and delivering the firm’s OCIO investment processes, strategic asset allocation, fund manager selection and risk management across Mercer clients.
Aganga was most recently a managing director in BlackRock’s U.S. outsourced CIO business. Before that, she advised institutional clients for Goldman Sachs.
Principal Financial Group named George Maris CIO and global head of equities. Maris’ responsibilities, across Principal’s equities platform, include managing 126 investment personnel over global investments, and serving as a named portfolio manager on international equity strategies.
He was a named portfolio manager for Principal’s active fundamental public equities strategies.
RPAG Appoints New SVP
Jesse Taylor, senior vice president, Retirement Plan Advisory Group
Retirement Plan Advisory Group promoted Jesse Taylor to senior vice president of business development.
Taylor is responsible for sales, marketing and partnerships of the firm’s technology and resources to retirement plan advisers, registered investment advisers and broker/dealers. He has worked as head of innovation for the company’s fintech platform PlanFees since 2019.
“With Jesse’s leadership, RPAG—which broke away from former owner NFP in May—continues to launch new systems and solutions, as well as develop enhanced customization and data aggregation features,” according to a firm spokesperson. “Jesse’s leadership at the firm, as well as his innovative ideas, have led RPAG to transform its branding, as well as its technology offerings.”
He will serve on RPAG’s senior leadership committee, reporting to Nick Della Vedova, RPAG president. Taylor joined RPAG in 2010, formerly serving as director of marketing, and has led sales and business development since 2020.
Hub’s Executive Team Grows
Robert Hartman, executive vice president, Hub International Ltd.
Robert Hartman joined Hub International Ltd. in the newly created position of executive vice president of strategic client service operations and the firm’s executive management team to elevate Hub’s client experience.
Reporting to Hub President and CEO Marc Cohen, Hartman will be responsible for client service processes. His responsibilities, in partnership with Hub leadership, include: identifying client outcomes benefiting from cross-functional integrated operational design and execution; developing client and employee programs that drive scale; and operationally supporting business segments such as retirement and private wealth, private client, employee benefits, and Hub-owned managing general agents and wholesalers, etc.
Hartman was previously chief operating officer and senior vice president of business development at Axis Specialty Insurance and Reinsurance, was a partner in management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and served as a Naval flight officer in the U.S. Navy. He received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
More On The Moves
➜ Sabrina Bailey is the new CEO of Fiducient Advisors. Bailey most recently served as London Stock Exchange Group’s global head of investment and wealth solutions. She says financial wellness capabilities and services for the end client are a new key focus for the firm.
➜ Jamie Hopkins left Carson Group in September to become Bryn Mawr Trust’s director of private wealth management, a position that lets him to be closer to home. Carson said his decision was made to prioritize his family, as well as to pursue making a larger impact in his local community. At Bryn Mawr, Hopkins will “lead, enhance and grow” the firm’s private wealth management business, the company said. Hopkins will remain on the board of directors of the FinServ Foundation.
➜ Newfront Retirement Services hired retirement plan consultant Khirstine Lumban (at right), who leaves a 401(k) consultant position at Sequoia Consulting Group, where she has worked since 2018. She previously served as an investment counselor for Fisher Investments. Additionally, Newfront hired Zach Nelson as an account executive and Miki Sakata as a retirement plan consultant in its retirement services group. Nelson comes from almost two decades with Fidelity Investments, most recently serving as a managing director. Sakata came from Three Bell, bringing tax exempt experience; she is a 25-year industry veteran.
➜ Abe Puerto is the new head of retirement plan solutions at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Puerto will lead a team of retirement plan consultants and investment consulting specialists, working with the bank’s wealth advisers to serve business owner clients. He has over two decades experience in the retirement industry, most recently at UBS.
➜ Kevin Mannino (right) and Sarah McEleney (left) joined The Standard’s retirement plan sales division, each in a new role of national sales director, concentrating on the $25 million-and-above asset market- segment. Mannino spent most of his 15 years in the retirement industry generating new business for midsize to large retirement plans at Prudential Retirement. McEleney has 20 years of industry experience, in both advising and recordkeeper roles; she previously was director of sales strategy at Transamerica.
➜ Northern Trust Asset Management named Anwiti Bahuguna (at right), chief investment officer of global asset allocation, a newly created role. Bahuguna will oversee the firm’s asset allocation and multimanager teams, reporting to Global CIO Angelo Manioudakis. Bahuguna joined NTAM after 17 years with Columbia Threadneedle Investments.
➜ Nuveen named James Nelson head of global public product. Nelson will lead equity and fixed-income product development and management across mutual funds, closed-end funds, exchange-traded funds, interval funds, separately managed accounts and collective investment trusts.
➜ To aid its effort to expand distribution of its lifetime income default products, TIAA has appointed Heather Peters senior director of consultant relations, as well as promoted Ciaran Murphy to senior director and lifetime income research specialist, and Dustin Benton to director of consultant relations. Peters, who came from Corebridge, will work with retirement plan advisers. Murphy will focus on education and evaluation of TIAA’s traditional and CREF lifetime income products, and Benton will manage and develop consultant relationships to drive growth.
➜ Registered investment adviser firm Choreo Advisors has named Craig Bartlett senior vice president of advisers. Bartlett joins the financial planning and wealth management firm from Creative Planning, where he served as director of wealth manager support and head of adviser success.
➜ Advisor360°, a provider of software and technology for enterprise wealth management firms, appointed Mike Fanning to its board of directors. With a 37-year career, Fanning most recently served as head of MassMutual U.S., MassMutual’s domestic insurance business, where he oversaw the growth of its suite of protection and wealth management solutions and its technology platform. Fanning’s appointment is one in a series of strategic initiatives, partnerships, senior executive hires and platform enhancements by Advisor360° to strengthen its position in the wealth management technology space.
➜ NFP appointed Amanda Wescott (at right), vice president and director of U.S. captive management operations for the company’s Risk and Insurance Strategy Collective. In this specialty practice, Wescott will collaborate with Kara Tencellent and Tracy Stopford, co-leaders of RISC, along with Jonathan McKenzie, head of U.S. captive management operations, to whom she reports. Wescott has over 15 years of captive and risk management experience. She recently served as vice president and senior client team leader at Marsh.