Retirement Industry People Moves

July Business Services, a national retirement plan provider, hired Scott Smith as the company’s Midwest regional sales consultant.

Smith joins a growing team of regional business development leaders that provide support to financial advisers and third-party administrator (TPA) partners on all facets of the sales process, including retirement plan design, proposals, and sales support. Smith will be responsible for working with advisers and other JULY relationship partners in the Midwest Region and will be based in Cleveland, Ohio.

Smith draws on more than 16 years of experience working with advisers, TPAs and plan sponsors while with MassMutual Financial Group and Fidelity Investments.

“Scott’s passion for helping advisers and TPAs build their businesses while ensuring plan sponsors receive the highest level of service and a plan that best meets their unique needs makes him a great fit for our team. Scott’s preference and knowledge of open architecture recordkeeping positions him as a great asset to advisers, TPAs and plan sponsors alike,” says Blake Willis, JULY’s CCO and head of sales.

JULY’s regional sales consultants provide expert field support for retirement plan-focused financial advisers and TPAs. They organize and host educational events, coordinate plan design illustrations, prepare and present proposals, and are speakers on topics relevant to industry professionals.

Legal & General Investment Management America, Inc. (LGIMA), a Chicago-based investment adviser specializing in fixed income, liability driven investment (LDI) and index strategies for the U.S. institutional market, hired Greg Behar as head of index investment strategy.

In this newly created position, Behar will report directly to Shaun Murphy, head of U.S. index funds. This addition follows a series of key hires and promotions within LGIMA’s index business, which currently manages more than $59 billion in index strategies.

Behar will be based in Chicago and responsible for overseeing and delivering thought leadership tailored to the institutional marketplace. His research will play an important role in LGIMA’s index management offering and his consultative approach will have a direct impact on how clients gain efficient and thoughtful exposure to multiple asset classes.

Behar brings 17 years of experience in developing investment solutions, thought leadership, and serving institutional investors globally. Prior to joining LGIMA, Behar served as senior vice president, Global Equity at Northern Trust Global Investments, where he was responsible for driving business growth of a $450 billion equity platform. Earlier in his career, he held similar roles at Deutsche Asset Management, collaborating with institutional investors to develop strategies targeted to their unique investment objectives. 

“We look forward to leveraging Greg’s experience across the investment spectrum, from market cap weighted index investments to more custom and complex factor based strategies,” says Murphy. “His expertise will be crucial as we continue to gain momentum and uphold our dedication to delivering a truly differentiated index offering.”

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has added CreditSights, an industry leading independent provider of global fixed income research, to its online portal of research and strategy content for its financial advisers.

Financial advisers will now have access to and can provide to clients, upon request, fundamental corporate bond research on more than 900 investment grade and high yield companies across the globe, as well as corporate credit-focused market strategy and sector analysis. With more than 70 analysts in the U.S., Europe and Asia, CreditSights integrates fundamental and quantitative disciplines to provide credit research to more than 1,000 institutions and corporations.

“The addition of CreditSights will help our financial advisers and their clients to make more informed decisions about corporate credit investments suited to pursuing their investment objectives within their risk profile,” says Kevin Lynyak, head of Trading, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management CapitalMarkets.

Jon P. DeBow was named senior vice president of marketing for the institutional fixed income business of Ramirez Asset Management (RAM).

DeBow will be responsible for developing and managing relationships with institutional investors and consultants for RAM’s Defined Contribution and Stable Value strategies. He will report to Samuel A. Ramirez, Jr., president and CEO of RAM.

Prior to joining RAM, DeBow was an executive director in the global fixed income division of J. P. Morgan Asset Management, where he focused on institutional retirement, defined contribution and stable value clients.

RAM, established in 2002, is an affiliate of the oldest Hispanic-owned investment firm in the United States, Samuel A. Ramirez & Company, Inc., and a certified minority owned business that provides total return institutional fixed income services to institutional customers.

Mercer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies announced a number of leadership changes as well as the creation of a U.S. Defined Contribution (DC) & Financial Wellness business unit, which will be led by senior partner Tom Murphy.

This unit brings together specialist DC and financial wellness talent from across Mercer’s U.S. business to provide stronger support to Mercer’s client base. 

Rich Joseph, currently the chief operating officer of Mercer Delegated Solutions (DS) in North America succeeds Murphy as head of the U.S. DS business. Murphy and Joseph both remain in Mercer’s Boston location and their respective new positions are effective immediately. Mercer intends to further expand this team with the addition of complementary, external talent to drive intellectual capital and proposition development in support of existing and future clients.                                   

Also effective immediately, Liana Magner, also based in Boston, is appointed to the role of National DC Investment Segment Leader, and Neil Lloyd, based in Vancouver, is appointed to the role of U.S. DC Research Leader. Both will work within the new DC and Financial Wellness business unit.                                                                                                                                              

“Bringing together our existing DC and financial wellness teams while adding complementary external talent and capabilities will enhance our ability to serve our clients,” says Simon O’Regan, president, North America Region, Mercer. “Our objective is to drive better financial outcomes for our clients and greater individual financial success for their employees. We will achieve this by broadening our suite of services and solutions, leveraging disruptive technology and combining our retirement and other financial management offerings into a single, engaging experience.”