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July 24, 2012 at 10:17 AM
This week in new hires, Achaean Financial announced that Professor Shlomo Benartzi would become its first academic advisor; Michele Wein Layne was named regional director of the SEC’s Los Angeles regional office; Matt Browning and Monica Bacon-Proctor joined Securities America; Barbara Hume went to IRI; Doug Rao and Joshua Rubin left Marsico; and Norm Boersma became chief investment officer of Templeton Global Equity Group.
Also, Stephen Barbaro announced plans to retire from Columbia Management Investment Advisors; Nigel Hart succeeded Michael Carey as fund co-manager at BlackRock; John Tsai stepped up on an MFS fund as Robert Lau is stepping down; Mark Dehmel moved up at New York Life; and Michael Brown joined Dowling & Yahnke.
Achaean Financial Welcomes Benartzi as Academic Advisor
Achaean Financial announced recently that Professor Shlomo Benartzi, a leading authority on behavioral finance, has agreed to serve as the firm’s first academic advisor. In this role, he will help Achaean better incorporate ideas from behavioral finance into its existing Retirement Outcome software and into the new tools currently in development by the firm.
Benartzi, currently a professor and co-chairman of the behavioral decision-making group at UCLA Anderson School of Management, is co-founder of the Behavioral Finance Forum, a collective of 40 prominent academics and 40 major financial institutions from around the globe. The Forum helps consumers make better financial decisions by fostering collaborative research efforts between academics and industry leaders. One of his most significant research contributions is the development of Save More Tomorrow (SMarT), a behavioral prescription designed to help employees increase their savings rates gradually over time.
SEC Names Layne Regional Director of Los Angeles Regional Office
The SEC announced July 19 that Michele Wein Layne has been named regional director of the Los Angeles regional office, effective immediately. She will manage the examination and enforcement programs that operate out of the Los Angeles office, which has a staff of more than 120 and primarily covers the SEC’s examination and enforcement efforts in southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam.
Layne has been an associate regional director for enforcement in the L.A. office since 2005. She began her SEC career 17 years ago as a staff attorney in the enforcement division and has been serving as the co-acting regional director since the departure of prior office director Rosalind Tyson earlier this year. Prior to joining the SEC staff in 1995, she worked in private practice for 11 years at the law firms of Dewey & LeBoeuf and Buchalter Nemer.
Securities America Welcomes Browning, Bacon-Proctor
Securities America recently announced that Matt Browning and Monica Bacon-Proctor have become registered representatives with the firm.
Browning’s business, MB Financial, is located in Jonesboro, Ark. He joined the financial services industry in 2006 with Edward Jones. Bacon-Proctor, with 30 years in the financial services industry, is joining Securities America advisor Garrett Morgan at Fountainhead Wealth in Sacramento, Calif. She spent 18 years providing financial planning services for clients; then, from 2001 to 2004, she worked on the corporate side of the financial services industry. Subsequently she returned to working with individuals.
IRI Welcomes Barbara Hume as Vice President of Membership
The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) announced recently that Barbara Hume has joined the association’s staff as its new vice president of membership. Hume brings more than 30 years of industry experience in retirement services and annuity sales and marketing. Most recently, she was the chief marketing officer for annuity/retirement and distribution marketing at Sun Life Financial.
Before joining, she was the chief marketing officer for Data Life, a software solutions provider for the insurance industry. During her career she also served as divisional vice president, investment and income division at MetLife; vice president, annuities and retirement services at Prudential Investments; and vice president, variable product management at Connecticut Mutual Financial Services.
Rao, Rubin Depart Marsico
Fund manager Doug Rao, who helmed the Marsico Flexible Capital Fund (MFCFX) and served as co-manager of the Marsico Growth Fund (MGRIX) and Marsico Focus Fund (MFOCX), became the most recent portfolio manager to leave Marsico Capital Management. He will be replaced as portfolio manager of the Flexible Capital Fund by Munish Malhotra and Jordon Laycob. Marsico CEO Thomas Marsico and Coralie Witter remain as co-managers of the latter two funds.
Joshua Rubin, a co-manager on the Marsico Emerging Markets Fund (MERGX), also announced he would be departing the firm, leaving Munish Malhotra in sole charge of the Emerging Markets Fund.
