New COO for PAS

“We conducted a nationwide search,” for the job of chief operating officer for Pershing Advisor Solutions (PAS), says Mark Tibergien, and found the top candidate “in the office next door.” Thus in late February, PAS named Karen Novak as COO, who will report to Tibergien, who heads the Pershing custody unit for RIAs as managing director. Novak joined Pershing in 1996 and most recently was a managing director and chief operations manager for PAS. John Iachello was the last person to fill the role of COO at Pershing Advisor Solutions; he retired in late 2007 following Tibergien’s hiring from Moss Adams.

Tibergien said Pershing “wants to work with growth-oriented advisors with sophisticated clients, and who need to invest in their businesses.” He acknowledges that “our competitors are formidable and good,” but says that Pershing can “differentiate by looking through to the end client,” and can accomplish that level of service with the firm’s “global reach.” PAS will know it’s making progress against those competitors, he said, partly “when advisors consolidate assets from other custodians with Pershing, and also when it wins the “confidence of other services providers who can refer other advisors to us.”