New hires

NEXT Financial Holdings Inc. of Houston has appointed Kimberly A. Branch president of NEXT Marketing Inc.
Ms. Branch, 41, has worked for 16 years in the financial services industry. She recently served as a regional vice president of business development for AIG Financial Advisors Inc. of Phoenix.
Ms. Branch will play a large role in hometown marketing, an expanded NEXT Financial concept. This department offers customized marketing, coaching calls, on-site practice management, client appreciation events, business succession, vision management and financial assistance for all the firm’s representatives.

Minerva Planning Group, a fee-only financial planning firm based in Atlanta, has promoted Micah Porter to president and chief executive.
He has been with the company for three years, overseeing its locations in Atlanta and St. Simons Island, Ga. Mr. Porter’s areas of specialty include retirement planning and investment management.
Previously, Mr. Porter, 37, was a regional sales director with XO Communications of Reston, Va., where he was responsible for the Midwestern enterprise and carrier sales team.

First National Bank of Omaha, Neb., has hired Randall D. Greer as head of equities at its First Investment Group.
Mr. Greer, 55, has more than 31 years’ experience in the financial services industry. Most recently, he was a senior vice president at Bridges Investment Counsel Inc. of Omaha. Before that, Mr. Greer was chief investment officer and director of Westchester Capital Management, also in Omaha.

Capital Analysts Inc., a broker-dealer based in Radnor, Pa., has added Matthew E. Lynch as senior vice president for corporate planning and development.
He will provide strategic direction for the firm, including enhancements to its adviser service platforms.
Most recently, Mr. Lynch, 43, was director of the business consulting group at Seattle-based Moss Adams LLP, where he specialized in strategy and management effectiveness for both broker-dealers and investment advisory practices.
He has 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry.

Genworth Financial Inc. in Richmond, Va., has named Ron Cordes a company officer.
He is chairman of AssetMark Investment Services Inc. in Pleasant Hill, Calif., a wholly owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial.
At AssetMark, which he co-founded in 1996, Mr. Cordes is responsible for directing the operations and administration of the firm’s corporate offices. AssetMark’s operations are now part of Genworth’s managed-money business, Genworth Financial Asset Management, which he also heads.
As chairman of the combined entity, Mr. Cordes, 47, now leads the management of more than $13 billion in assets through more than 4,000 independent fee-based advisers.

BridgePortfolio.com Inc. of Chicago has hired Jessica Weaver, 26, as portfolio administration and trading specialist.
She has more than seven years’ industry experience, most recently as portfolio trader for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and Advent consultant to Harris Bank, also in Chicago.

Stanford Group Co. in Houston has appointed Christopher R. Prindle, Evan J. Farrell and Peter Montalbano as senior vice presidents in the company’s
private-wealth-management office in Boca Raton, Fla. Stanford has also hired Michael Gifford as managing director for the firm’s wealth management division.
Mr. Prindle, 39, has 18 years’ experience in financial services and 15 in private-wealth management, most recently as a senior vice president and investment strategist with the wealth management division of Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp. He is a chartered financial analyst.
Mr. Farrell, 39, joins Stanford from the investment services group at Wachovia Securities LLC of Richmond, Va., where he most recently served as a vice president and financial adviser dedicated to serving clients of the bank’s wealth management division. With 17 years’ experience in private-wealth management, he has focused on assisting clients with comprehensive investment plans, from analysis of current holdings to asset allocation plan formation and implementation.
Mr. Montalbano, 47, also comes to Stanford via Wachovia, where he has worked for the past 10 years, most recently as senior vice president. He was named partner at Wachovia in 2005. During his tenure with Wachovia’s wealth management division, Mr. Montalbano, a certified financial planner, was chairman of the entrepreneurial-practice specialty group.
Mr. Gifford, 46, comes to Stanford with 23 years’ experience in the retirement services industry. Most recently, he served as vice president and product manager of Guided Portfolio Services, a discretionary-asset-management service, at AIG VALIC in Houston.
In addition, Stanford has appointed Abi Subramanian director of private capital. He will be based in the company’s New York investment banking office.
Most recently, Mr. Subramanian, 34, was a director of the private-equity group at SG Cowen & Co. LLC of New York, specializing in the technology, media, health-care and consumer sectors.

Delaware Investments, a Philadelphia-based affiliate of Lincoln Financial Group, has added five new equity team members. Henry A. Garrido, Bruce Schoenfeld, Michael Tung and Guojia Zhang have joined the company as analysts with the emerging-markets team in Boston. Kevin Brown has been named senior investment specialist for the focus growth equity team in San Francisco.
Mr. Garrido, 39, is expected to focus on Latin American markets. Most recently, he was senior analyst at Wells Capital Management of San Francisco.
Mr. Schoenfeld, 40, who has more than 10 years’ experience as an emerging-markets analyst and portfolio manager, also joins the firm as an analyst and will focus on the securities of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Previously, he worked as vice president at New York-based Artha Capital Management Inc.
Mr. Tung, 31, will cover the technology and health-care sectors across all regions for the firm’s emerging-markets team. He spent the previous 20 months as a vice president at the New York-based Galleon Group, where he performed fundamental research in the medical-technology and biotechnology sectors.
Mr. Zhang, 28, will cover the Asian markets. Before joining Delaware Investments, he worked at Boston-based Evergreen Investment Management Co.
Mr. Brown, 42, is responsible for managing the Focus Growth Equity team’s processes and maintaining client relationships. Most recently, Mr. Brown spent three years as a director in institutional-equity sales at New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

Fifth Third Bank, part of Fifth Third Bancorp of Cincinnati, has hired Matthew J. Lynch as vice president, commercial lending, at its St. Louis office.
Mr. Lynch, 50, joins the company from Montgomery Bank NA in Sikeston, Mo. He was a senior vice president, working from the St. Louis branch.

Invesco Institutional Inc. of Atlanta, a subsidiary of London-based AMVESCAP PLC, has added Kelvin Liu, 37, as principal of its private-equity fund-of-funds team.
He will conduct due diligence and focus on Asian funds. For the last seven years, Mr. Liu was the director of North American operations for TIF Ventures Ltd., a $1.3 billion fund of funds in Singapore.

CTC Consulting Inc., a subsidiary of New York-based U.S. Trust Corp., has tapped David Upson as managing director and senior hedge fund research analyst.
He brings more than 17 years’ experience in capital markets. Previously, Mr. Upson, 42, was a managing director at the Fairfield Greenwich Group in New York. There, he handled Fairfield’s investments in currency and fixed-income strategies.

New York Life Insurance Co. has added four retirement income specialists/regional vice presidents to help boost sales of its Lifetime Income Annuity: George Knox, Doug Brino, Dan Shikes and Steve Rathford.
Mr. Knox, 53, joins the company from Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate Financial Services LLC. He was a senior regional sales manager and senior vice president based in the Boston area.
Mr. Brino, 35, hails from Chase Manhattan Bank, which is now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. At Chase Manhattan, he was an external wholesaler.
Mr. Shikes, 35, last worked
for American National Insurance Co. of Galveston, Texas, as the Atlantic region national sales manager.
Mr. Rathford, 53, comes to New York Life from Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Co. Inc. in Boston, where he was a senior vice president.

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