Franklin Templeton
Chetan Seghal has been appointed lead manager of the Franklin Templeton emerging markets investment trust team (Temit).
Based in Singapore, Sehgal takes over from Carlos Hardenberg who will leave the company on 31 March 2018 to pursue other opportunities. Hardenberg will continue as a portfolio manager for Temit until his departure.
Sehgal has been a portfolio manager and senior research analyst for Temit for the past two years, working closely with Hardenberg and Mark Mobius, who retired from Franklin Templeton on 31 January 2018.
Axa Investment Managers
Axa IM has appointed Florence Dard as global head of business development. Dard will join on 5 March and will lead a newly-created business development department, which will look to bring relevant internal teams together as a single business unit.
Based in Paris, Dard will report to Isabelle Scemama, chief executive of Axa Investment Managers.
Dard has extensive experience of working within Axa Group, having spent more than 18 years in various positions including 13 years within Axa Investment Managers as relationship manager for Axa France, head of corporate sales for pension and savings schemes and institutional sales manager.
Financial Conduct Authority
The FCA has appointed Nausicca Delfas as the executive director of international.
In this role, Delfas will be responsible for setting and growing the FCA’s strategy for international engagement, and leading its delivery. She will also be leading the delivery of the FCA’s response throughout the process of withdrawal from the EU.
Additionally, Delfas will be a member of the FCA’s executive committee and will report directly to the chief executive.
She has been acting chief operating officer and a member of the FCA’s Executive Committee, since November 2016.
Axiom SL
Axiom SL has appointed Roger Worthington as head of production operations to support the newly created software-as-a-service function.
Worthington will be based in Singapore and will report to Peter Tierney, Asia Pacific chief executive for Axiom SL.
Worthington brings more than 20 years’ experience in building and managing shared infrastructure, including networks and data centres, at financial institutions.
Most recently, he served as the head of Asia Pacific operations at Pico, a provider of market data services and customised managed infrastructure solutions.
He previously held leadership roles at Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE Euronext, BT Global Services and Radianz, where he designed, built and oversaw the implementation, operation and support of these companies’ infrastructure.
Legg Mason
Legg Mason has hired Regina Curry as chief diversity officer. She joins the company after serving as senior director of global diversity and inclusion at McCormick & Company.
At McCormick & Company, Curry developed and implemented a multi-year global diversity and inclusion strategy and established a firm-wide metrics framework to drive accountability.
Curry’s hiring is the latest in a series of actions aimed at advancing and enhancing diversity and inclusion initiatives across Legg Mason.
Mourant Ozannes
Offshore law firm, Mourant Ozannes has appointed three partners, bringing the firm’s total global number of partners to 60.
Stephen Alexander and Carla Benest, from the Jersey office, and Chinyin Johnston from the London office will join the partnership with effect from 1 February 2018.
Alexander joined the Jersey office in 2014 and has broad experience in multi-jurisdictional commercial litigation, arbitration and regulatory matters.
Benest joined Mourant Ozannes in 2007 and has extensive experience as an employment lawyer in both contentious and non-contentious employment matters.
Johnston has been with the firm since 2015 and is a specialist corporate finance lawyer, with extensive experience advising on British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands law aspects of banking and finance transactions.
Sun Life
Tieu-Bich Nguyen has been hired as head of Asia credit research for Sun Life.
In this role Nguyen will be responsible for leading Sun Life’s credit research team, supporting its growth in Asia.
Based in the firm’s Asia regional office in Hong Kong, Nguyen will join the team on 7 February 2018 and report to Sancho Chan, chief investment officer of Sun Life Asia, and David Hamlin, senior managing director of North American credit research of Sun Life Investment Management.
Nguyen has more than 20 years’ of credit experience. Most recently, she was senior vice president and partner at Wellington Management Company.
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo asset management has hired Wai Lee as global head of research for the multi-asset solutions team.
Lee, who will assume the role in February, joins Wells Fargo from Neurberger Berman where he was head of quantitative investments. Prior to this Wai was head of the quantative engineering group at Credit Suisse.
Based in New York, Lee is the author of the book Theory and Methodology of Tactical Asset Allocation, and he has contributed chapters to other books on different topics. He has served on the advisory board of The Journal of Portfolio Management since 1997.
Cult Wines
Cult Wines, a fine wine asset manager, has appointed Gemma Gowers as finance director.
Gowers joins from Light Cinema Holding, a private equity backed independent cinema chain where she was chief finance officer and company secretary. Prior to that she held the same position at Yotel Limited, the global hotel group established by Simon Woodroffe, the founder of Yo Sushi.
