Russell’s Haughton Retires

Kelly Haughton, strategic director and guiding force behind the growth of Russell Indexes, retired as of Oct. 17.

Russell Indexes is a unit of Russell Investments, which is mainly known for its institutional money management expertise. It is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Haughton was chiefly responsible for the growth of the index giant, from its first stab at the index creation business back in 1983 to its leading position today as provider of 63 percent of the benchmarks for institutional investors, covering 55.6 percent of all U.S. institutional assets, or approximately $4.4 trillion in assets.

Haughton joined Russell in 1982, and has had numerous roles at the company in addition to his position driving the development and licensing of the Russell family of indexes.


Mazzilli Leaves ETF Post At Morgan Stanley

Veteran analyst Paul Mazzilli is apparently leaving his post overseeing Morgan Stanley’s analyst team covering ETFs. While Mazzilli’s departure has not been officially made public, an announcement was expected as JOI went to press.

Mazzilli is one of the best-known names in ETF research, and his team’s reports are widely read by industry participants. Remaining members on the acclaimed team he built include Dominic Maister, David Perlman and Mitchell Schorr.

Whether he agreed to take an early retirement from the struggling financial services firm wasn’t clear to those familiar with the situation.

As an executive director at the firm and its director of ETF research, Mazzilli oversaw analysis of actively managed closed-end funds as well as passively managed index-linked exchange-traded products. He also guided the management of Morgan Stanley’s Strategic Equity Portfolios (STEP) products and asset allocation models using ETFs.

Mazzilli’s departure comes on the heels of Morgan Stanley’s loss of Deborah Fuhr in May. She headed Morgan Stanley’s influential investments strategy group, and now is in charge of Barclays Global Investors’ ETF Research and Implementation Strategy Team.


IndexIQ Hires Distribution Head

IndexIQ, an upstart developer of index- and ETF-based hedge fund replication strategies, has hired Anthony Davidow as its new senior vice president and head of distribution. Davidow’s hire signals IndexIQ’s ramping up of plans to push its alternative index strategies into the major U.S. distribution channels.

IndexIQ is betting on the fact that the recent poor performance of traditional hedge funds will encourage investors to consider its lower-cost, “alternative beta” strategies, which aim to capture the overall performance characteristics of the hedge fund space at lower costs and with better liquidity.

IndexIQ is developing hedge fund replication strategies that use portfolios of ETFs to deliver returns similar to various hedge fund strategies. Davidow is now searching for a sales team to cover the U.S. He plans to hire three people in all: a national sales manager and two internal wholesalers. Davidow was previously a managing director for Morgan Stanley’s Consulting Services Group.


Barclays Hires DB Executive For European ETF Sales

Nizam Hamid, formerly head of the Global Portfolio and Index Strategy team at Deutsche Bank, has joined BGI as managing director and head of Sales Strategy for Europe. Hamid has more than 20 years’ experience as an investment analyst, and is a member of the FTSE and STOXX index committees.

Together with Yvonne Sandford, Hamid was formerly responsible for publishing the weekly “ETF Liquidity Trends” report at Deutsche Bank.

BGI continues to fill out its road map for global ETF distribution. Earlier in the year, it hired Alejandro Reynoso to head up its Mexico City-based operation driving sales of ETFs into Latin America.