Willis Towers Watson, Principal Global Investors, Axioma, Bank of Montreal, Vontobel, UBS, Robeco, BTIG, HQ Capital, Markov Processes International

Willis Towers Watson – The consultancy giant has promoted three staff to global heads within its manager research team. Chris Redmond has been named global head of credit and diversifying strategies, a newly created role. He has worked at Willis Towers Watson for 13 years, most recently as global head of credit research.

Nimisha Srivastava has been promoted to global head of credit. She joined in 2014 and was previously head of manager research for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Paul Jayasingha is now global head of real assets, having previously been global head of real estate. He has worked at Willis Towers Watson for more than 19 years. Srivastava and Jayasingha report to Redmond, as does Sara Rejal, who was appointed global head of liquid diversifying strategies in October last year.

Principal Global Investors – The $411bn (€381.5bn) asset manager has opened its first office in Switzerland and appointed Martin Bloch to lead its expansion in the country. The US-headquartered firm now has four offices in Europe, including London, Amsterdam, and Munich. Bloch joins from Robeco, where he was country manager and head of sales for Switzerland.

Axioma – The data analysis group has hired George Patterson as managing director for corporate strategy. He was previously CIO for multi-asset investments at Bank of Montreal Global Asset Management. He will lead Axioma’s new corporate strategy team to focus on “identifying buyside trends and market opportunities to expand the company’s footprint and accelerate growth”, Axioma said.

Vontobel Asset Management – Gregor Hirt is to join the Swiss asset manager as head of multi-asset solutions on 1 July. He will also join the firm’s investment committee. He was most recently global chief strategist for multi-asset at UBS Global Asset Management, and before that was the firm’s CIO for global investment solutions in Europe and Switzerland.

Robeco – The Dutch asset management company has named Juan Carlos Briones as consultant relations director, based in London. He joins from Pimco where he was a senior vice president in the US giant’s consultant relations group.

BTIG – The American fund management group has hired four new managing directors for its fixed income team. Anthony Guido will focus on high yield sales, and was previously a high yield trader at investment bank Jefferies. Jay Sommer also joins from Jefferies, and specialises in bankruptcies, restructurings, liquidations, and fixed income special situations. Steven Jones has joined as high-yield credit strategist from US Bancorp, where he was managing director and energy desk analyst. Jeffrey Walsh will focus on high yield sales and trading, and was previously managing director of high yield sales at Canaccord Genuity.

HQ Capital – Heiko Dimmerling has been appointed chief operating officer at HQ Capital, the private equity and real estate manager. He joins from private equity firm Triton, where he was a partner and managing director. He has taken over the role from Georg Wunderlin, who became CEO at HQ Capital last year.

Markov Processes International – MPI, which provides investment performance analysis tools, has appointed Bijan Foroodian as managing director for EMEA. He was previously chief investment officer at Inflection Point Capital Management, an investment consultancy firm.

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