New Hire Roundup: TD Ameritrade Institutional Adds Dario

BrightScope announced Wednesday that Sonia Ahuja has joined the BrightScope team as executive vice president of business development and strategy. In her new role, she will drive growth and help build and expand relationships with broker-dealers, custodians, banks, recordkeepers and asset managers.

Prior to joining, Ahuja was the chief strategy officer at First Allied Securities. She has more than 12 years of experience in managing business performance improvement initiatives for multiple organizations, including Wells Fargo Advisors, First Allied Securities and Bank of America. In addition, she previously served as a consultant in both technical and business environments to Fortune 500 companies such as American Express, AIG and Bank of America and is also a certified project management professional (PMP). She is Six Sigma certified.

Rohit Syal Joins Ullico Investment Advisors

Ullico announced recently that Rohit Syal has joined Ullico Investment Advisors as a director. Syal has more than 10 years of infrastructure sector experience in project finance, public/private partnerships (P3), capital markets and feasibility analysis.

Prior to joining Ullico, Syal was a senior vice president at Loop Capital Markets, where he managed the firm’s infrastructure advisory and finance practice. In addition, he spent six years at Wilbur Smith Associates’ Transportation Finance Group as a feasibility and P3 consultant for U.S. and international transportation projects. CFPB Announces Senior Personnel Changes

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently announced several changes to senior leadership positions within the agency.

Kelly Thompson Cochran, previously the deputy assistant director for regulations, will serve as the acting assistant director for regulations, assuming the responsibilities of Leonard Chanin, who is departing the bureau. As deputy assistant director, Cochran oversaw preparation of the bureau’s proposed and final rules implementing Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provisions regarding remittances, mortgage servicing, mortgage disclosures, mortgage loan originator compensation, high-cost mortgages and appraisals. Prior to stand-up of the bureau, she led the planning for its rulemaking function, including supervising the launch of project teams and coordinating the hiring and transfer of staff members from several federal agencies.

Cochran came from the U.S. Treasury Department, where she advised office and departmental leadership concerning general consumer protection issues and the consumer and investor protection provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Prior to joining Treasury in November 2009, she practiced law with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, D.C., with a focus on consumer financial services regulatory counseling and litigation.

Chris Lipsett will join as senior counsel in the office of the director. Most recently, he was a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where his practice focused on regulatory, compliance, counseling, litigation, and transactional matters in the financial services industry, with an emphasis on credit cards and other consumer products. He represented financial services clients in major class-action and issue-oriented litigation in federal and state courts at all levels, involving a wide variety of consumer financial products. He also clerked at the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court.

Stephen Van Meter will serve as deputy general counsel. He joined the CFPB’s legal division in June 2011 as assistant general counsel for policy and helped to lead the division’s law and policy group. He came from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, where he served for nearly 14 years, most recently as assistant director of the community and consumer law division. Previously, he was a senior attorney in the legal division at the Federal Reserve Board, and an associate at Ropes & Gray in Boston. He started his legal career as a law clerk to Justice Francis P. O’Connor of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

Delicia Reynolds Hand is the new staff director for the consumer advisory board and councils. In this capacity she will plan, direct, coordinate and evaluate the CFPB’s advisory boards and councils. She will serve as the principal advisor to the consumer advisory board chair and work with senior management to determine the boards’ and councils’ priorities, objectives and policies. Prior to the joining the CFPB, she was legislative director for the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA), general counsel at the Center for Community Change, senior counsel to John Sarbanes of the U.S. House of Representatives and Skadden Fellow, staff attorney at CASA of Maryland. Glenn Cassidy Joins Great-West Retirement Services

Great-West Retirement Services recently announced that it has appointed Glenn Cassidy as a regional sales director for the Orange County market. He is based in Orange County, Calif., reports to Ken Munro, western region vice president and will work with brokers, financial advisers, consultants, wirehouses and third-party administrators.

Cassidy comes from Nationwide Insurance, where he spent most of his 20-plus-year career. For the previous four years, he was regional vice president of retirement sales for Nationwide’s Orange County and Hawaii markets. From 2004 to 2007, he served as TPA relationship manager covering the western U.S. for Nationwide. In 2000, he left the insurer to join E.A. Edberg Associates. Prior to that, he served in a number of increasingly responsible roles for Nationwide from 1990 to 2000.

Marty Fridson Joins S&P Capital IQ LCD Editorial Team

S&P Capital IQ’s LCD group announced Tuesday that Marty Fridson has joined its editorial team as an independent contributor of weekly and monthly high-yield commentary. Beginning the week of Sept. 17, Fridson, who leads the financial consulting firm FridsonVision, will author a weekly online column as well as produce a series of regular video pieces, available on YouTube. His monthly commentary will be available across the S&P Capital IQ product suite as well as the LCD’’s Forbes blog.

Since 1976, Fridson has conducted research, advised and consulted for money managers and investment banks including Paine Webber, Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and BNP Paribas.

Edward Owens to Retire from Vanguard

Vanguard announced Wednesday that Edward Owens, portfolio manager of Vanguard Health Care Fund, plans to retire on Dec. 31. Owens, a senior vice president and partner of Wellington Management Co., has managed the fund since its inception in 1984 and is Vanguard’s longest-tenured external portfolio manager.

Associate portfolio manager Jean Hynes, who specializes in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, will assume managerial responsibility of the fund upon Owens’ retirement. Hynes, senior vice president and partner at Wellington Management, joined the firm in 1991 and has served on the fund’s management team for nearly 20 years. She was named associate portfolio manager in 2008.

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Read the Aug. 29 New Hire Roundup at AdvisorOne.