Latest appointments within the hedge fund and related industries.

Martin Currie Investment Management has announced that Christine Montgomery and Neil Robson are to join its global equity team by the end of 2009. Montgomery joins from Edinburgh Partners where she was an investment partner responsible for managing segregated institutional accounts totaling $742 million. Robson was previously head of global equities at Pioneer Investments, responsible for the four equity teams run from the Dublin office with $17.7 billion assets under management.

Union Bancaire Privée has hired Richard Wohanka as the CEO of the bank’s asset management and alternative investments division. He also becomes a member of the bank’s executive committee. Wohanka has over 25 years of experience in asset-management, having most recently been the CEO of Fortis Investment Management.

Custom House Global Fund Services has announced two additions. David Barry and John Higgins. Barry rejoins as head of sales and marketing for UK, Europe and the Middle East from the company’s Dublin office. Barry was most recently director of accounting for IFS Ireland where he was responsible for net asset value (NAV) production for a large client.
Higgins joins as head of sales and marketing for the Americas, having previously been senior vice president at Triland USA.

Hedge fund attorney Bart Mallon of Mallon has joined Cole-Friemen & Beugelmans’s San Francisco office as of counsel. Cole-Friemen & Beugelmans is a boutique law firm serving hedge fund managers and broker-dealers. It has offices in New York and San Francisco. Mallon’s practice concentrated on fund formation, investment adviser registration and other compliance and business issues facing new managers.

BNY Mellon has appointed Brian Ruane to the new position of CEO of alternative investment services. Ruane has been at BNY Mellon since 1993 and was most recently executive vice president and head of global client management North America. BNY Mellon Alternative Investment Services is a hedge fund administrator with over $200 billion in assets under administration.

Crestline Investors has appointed Rhoni Seguin to head consultant relations for the Fort Worth, Texas-based hedge fund of funds management company. Rhoni headed the western region for Invesco International prior to joining Crestline.

Newscape Capital Group, a London-based specialist investment boutique, has hired Leonardo Da Costa to join its core investment team in London as a portfolio manager. Da Costa joins from Hydra Capital Management where he was a portfolio manager on the company’s long only, long/short and arbitrage emerging market fixed income strategies.

Otkritie, a Russian brokerage, has appointed Howard Snell as a London-based director. Previoiusly he worked at Troika as UK chief executive. Nicholas Richmond has joined as director and head of equity trading based in Moscow. Richmond was previously vice president at JP Morgan and head of Russian trading. Otkritie Securities is the UK-based subsidiary of OTKRITIE Financial Corporation acting as a broker, asset manager, financial consultant and investment bank.

The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) has appointed Tim Middleton as its first technical consultant. Middleton is the immediate past chairman of the PMI London region and has worked at Mercer, Barnett Waddingham and the NAPF in a number of senior technical management positions. PMI is the professional body which supports and develops the experts who run UK pension schemes.

Tradar, a provider of portfolio management and accounting solutions to the alternative investment management industry, has appointed Arti Hatzirodos as managing director of its Asian business. Hatzirodos was employed as the chief financial officer of an event-driven hedge fund based in London, Singapore and Sydney prior to joining Tradar. 

RBC Corporate Employee & Executive Services (RBC cees), part of RBC Wealth Management, a division of the Royal Bank of Canada, has appointed Simon Stirzaker as a senior manager and Rola Azab as a manager. Stirzaker and Azab, previously at HSBC, will report to Julian Gardner, director EMEA in RBC’s continental European hub in Geneva. RBC cees is a global specialist in employee benefit plan administration, providing corporate trustee and administration services to its global corporate client base.

Knight Capital Group has announced that Knight Libertas has established a global emerging markets sales team based in Greenwich (Connecticut), Hong Kong and London. Augusto Castilho, Eamon Tubridy, Alfredo Viegas and Elena Antonova have joined in the US. Alesandro Gherzi, Alisa Mujagic, Nipun Ramaiya, Darren Reiss, Richard Segal and Will Trossell are now in the U.K. Jay Lee and Felix Sun are in Asia. Knight Libertas is an institutional fixed income broker-dealer providing trade execution, fundamental investment research and capital markets services across a broad range of fixed income securities. Knight Capital Group is a global capital markets company providing market access and trade execution services across multiple asset classes to buy- and sell-side companies.