Northern Trust in London has hired three new staff in its asset servicing business development team for EMEA, and reassigned a fourth. Among them is Richard Hughes, formerly Managing Director for the EMEA region at Omgeo, who began work at the bank on 30 January.
Hughes joins as a Vice President in investment operations outsourcing. He is joined by Rob Messenger, who also becomes a Vice President, charged with recruiting UK fund managers as clients; Aaron Overy, as Vice President responsible for marketing to cross border pension fund pooling prospects; and Paul Chapman, Senior Vice President, as Head of Consulting and Strategic Relationships, Europe. All four positions are new, though Chapman has worked at Northern Trust since 2003.
Hughes is charged with “continuing to shape” Northern Trust’s investment operations outsourcing proposition. He held a number of business development and management roles at Thomson from 1993, before joining Omgeo, the Thomson joint venture with DTCC.
Messenger will work with Northern Trust’s Global Fund Services Group to develop business among fund managers. He joined on 1 February 2006 from Royal Bank of Canada Global Services (RBC) where he was Director, Client Solutions for the EMEA region from 2003. Prior to RBC, he was at Invesco Asset Management UK from 1998, where he held a number of management, product marketing, client service and business development roles. He has also worked at Fidelity Investments UK and Bank of Bermuda.
Overy, who joined Northern Trust on 6 February, will focus on developing new cross-border pooling opportunities with European multinationals and investment managers. Although some custodians are sceptical about the business potential, Northern Trust has made a considerable fanfare about its pooling capabilities, announcing in December last year that it had launched Univest on behalf of Unilever – which the bank says is the first Luxembourg domiciled Founds Commun de Placement (FCP) created for a multinational. Overy joins Northern Trust from CheckFree, the American software and transaction processing company that is best-known in London for its acquisition of the Heliograph corporate actions software house.
Overy held a business development role at Checkfree from 2003. Previously, he worked at Thomson Financial for five years, selling front, middle and back office fund accounting and portfolio management software solutions to buy-side clients. He has also worked at ABN Amro and BITA Plus in business development roles.
In his new role, which also started on 6 February, Paul Chapman has oversight of asset servicing consultant relationships and responsibility for managing and developing strategic partnerships. He joined Northern Trust in 2003 as Head of Relationship Management for Global Fund Services clients. Chapman has also worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, Pershing and State Street.
“These appointments are in line with our objective of continuing to add expertise and resource to support long-term strategic business growth,” says Anne-Lise Winge, head of asset servicing business development for EMEA at Northern Trust. “In addition to traditional pension fund custody – which continues to be at the core of our business – Northern Trust has identified pooling, outsourcing and Global Fund Services as key initiatives. We also understand the importance of continuing to further cultivate our extensive relationships with consultants who are critical to the business development process. Richard, Rob, Aaron and Paul have extensive experience and successful track records in the crucial areas of new business generation, client service and product management. Their skill sets and expertise fit well with Northern Trust’s consultative, knowledge-based approach to our business development activities.”