BofA Brings in New Heads for Retirement, Wealth Management

Bank of America (BofA) brought in Andrew Sieg to head its retirement group and appointed Keith Banks and John Theil to lead Private Wealth Management.

In an internal memo, Sallie Krawcheck, president of Global Wealth and Investment Management (GWIM), announced several executive posts, effective immediately. Krawcheck recently took on her new role, promptly followed by the departure of Daniel Sontag as head of the brokerage unit (see “Krawcheck Replaces Moynihan to Head Wealth Management at BofA” and “Merrill Brokerage Head Sontag to Exit BofA”).

Among her appointments, Krawcheck said Sieg joined the firm as the managing director and head of GWIM Retirement and Philanthropic Services (RPS), which provides administration, recordkeeping, custodial, communications, consulting, and execution services to businesses and organizations. Sieg replaces Steve Bodurtha, who will retire after 23 years, and assumed the role last year after the departure of Michael Falcon (see “Falcon Leaving Retirement Group at Merrill Lynch”).

Krawcheck also announced that Banks and Thiel will co-lead Private Wealth Management, serving ultra-high-net-worth clients. Thiel will continue to serve as head of Merrill Lynch’s Private Banking and Investments Group, and Banks will serve as president of U.S. Trust. Mike Jones will continue to serve as president of Columbia Management, Bank of America’s asset management organization, reporting to Banks.

Lyle LaMothe will continue as head of U.S. Wealth Management, leading financial advisers from Merrill Lynch and Banc of America Investment Services, Inc., in the U.S., according to the memo. International wealth management heads remain unchanged: Eva Castillo will continue to serve as head of EMEA Wealth Management, with responsibility for financial advisers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; Antony Hung will remain head of Asia Pacific Wealth Management; and Brian Sepe will remain head of Latin America & Canada Wealth Management.

Headed by Sieg, the RPS group will also include the personal retirement functions that previously reported to Dean Athanasia, who was named as head of the GWIM Banking and Direct Investment Division. Before this appointment, Sieg served as head of Citigroup’s Emerging Affluent Client Segment, with responsibility for Global Wealth Management’s approach to attracting and serving affluent U.S. households. Prior to joining Citigroup in 2005, Sieg led Merrill Lynch’s New York International Complex and San Diego office complex. In 2000, he was appointed managing director and head of the firm’s Financial Advisory Center, a call center-based offering he helped to create for clients.

Krawcheck also announced:

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  • Chris Dupuy will continue to lead Global Investment Solutions, responsible for managing financial products, including mutual funds, stocks, bonds, new issue, insurance, alternative investments, and structured products. Dupuy will oversee all manager due diligence, portfolio construction, and investment implementation activities for the business globally. He will be responsible for the Americas Distribution Group that previously reported to LaMothe, and the Alternative Investment Asset Management group, previously led by David Bailin, who is leaving the company.
  • John Hogarty is now GWIM Chief Operating Officer and will lead sales planning, support, and resource allocation globally and across all client segments.
  • Michael Sullivan will continue as head of the Global Client Coverage Group, responsible for the delivery of a referral and client coverage capability. Harry Singh now reports to Sullivan as deputy head, and will continue in his strategic leadership role working across the organization.
  • The entire GWIM leadership team will continue to work closely with Mark Alexander, head of Global Wealth & Investment Management Technology & Operations.

“Working closely together, these leaders will be charged with maintaining the heritage and culture of our organizations while also benefiting from perspectives that will help us build on the culture of teamwork across GWIM,” Krawcheck said in the memo.

BrightScope Unveils Adviser Service

The 401(k) ratings and analytics firm BrightScope launched a service to help advisers and consultants find plans that need their help.

BrightScope is a service that allows anyone to look up 401(k) plan data, which is gleaned from public sources such as Form 5500s and directly from plan sponsors. In July, the firm launched an offering for plan sponsors to compare their plans against a group of similar companies (see “BrightScope Launches 401k Plan Management Dashboard”).

Now the firm is marketing to advisers with Advisor Central 1.0, an interface that enables advisers to search by plan design and investment criteria among more than 12,000 plan evaluations to find plan sponsor clients in need of their services. BrightScope said the tool allows advisers to quickly identify plans to fit a target market, and to find and address critical pain points for plan sponsors.

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Furthermore, BrightScope said its search and sort capabilities designed to save advisers time.


More information is available at www.brightscope.com.

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