U.S. Jobs' Roundup: Compliance and healthcare sector hires rise

Last week saw plenty of hires across a wide range of finance sectors, including several senior level appointments.

Bank of America, the third-biggest U.S. bank, hired the deputy chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's mutual fund division. Cynthia Fornelli will become a senior vice president in a newly created position in charge of risk assessment and ensuring the bank's compliance with securities regulations. As deputy director of the SEC's investment management division, Fornelli helped lead the most extensive overhaul of mutual fund oversight since the 1940s.

Bank One's chief economist left the company, less than two months after it was purchased by JP Morgan Chase. Diane Swonk said she was leaving to pursue new professional challenges. The company said JP Morgan's team of economists will continue to serve customers, led by chief economist John Lipsky and global head of economic research Bruce Kasman.

Morgan Stanley bolstered its U.S. investment banking team with the appointment of Paul Adams, formerly of Citigroup, as managing director and head of its healthcare services team.

Deutsche Bank has continued its hiring spree by poaching Iván Santillán and Keith Cunningham from rival Merrill Lynch to build its New York equity derivatives business. The move comes as U.S. investors have begun showing an increasing appetite for more complex derivative solutions, and as Merrill Lynch has sought to build its own equity derivatives business.

Santillán has been appointed to a new position as a director in charge of Latin America products, while Cunningham has been appointed as a vice president in the structured and investment products group within the bank's global equities derivatives department. Both will be based in New York.

The PNC Financial Services Group appointed Aleem Gillani as senior vice president and chief market risk officer for the corporation. Gillani will be responsible for oversight of all market risk-related activities, including interest rate and liquidity exposures, trading, equity and other investment business efforts. Prior to joining PNC, he was the executive director of global market risk management at Fleet/Bank Boston.

Even equities saw hiring this week. Piper Jaffray said Deborah Knobelman has joined the firm as a vice president and senior research analyst in healthcare covering specialty pharmaceuticals. Knobelman will be based in the firm's New York office. She joins Piper Jaffray from ThinkEquity Partners in New York.

Meanwhile, Banc of America Securities (BAS) has hired Robert Lacoursiere as a principal and a senior equity research analyst covering the specialty finance and mortgage finance sectors. He will be based in New York. He joins from Capital One Financial, where he was a vice president, financial strategies in the corporate development group.

Assured Guaranty announced more structured finance appointments with the hiring of John Meehan as a Senior Vice President in its structured credit group. Meehan was previously at Banc One Capital Markets.

RCM, the investment firm owned by Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, has hired Peter J. Anderson as U.S. chief investment officer to replace Ian Vose who has decided to focus exclusively on international portfolios. Anderson, previously chief investment officer of American Express Financial Advisors until his retirement in 2001, will take over at the end of August.

RCM strengthened its global equity team in August with the appointments of Matthew Bowyer and Malcolm Thomas to work on a new core strategy operating alongside RCM's pure growth style. RCM has around $41.7bn in worldwide assets under management.

In New York, ABN Amro has hired Jeffrey Baird as a senior energy trader from Merrill Lynch, and Bruno Stanziale as a senior energy salesman from Deutsche Bank. Baird was previously head of oil and natural gas trading at Merrill, while Stanziale worked in a similar marketing role at Deutsche.

ABN began making a concerted push into the fast-growing OTC commodity derivatives markets in May last year when the bank integrated its existing teams into its newly formed financial markets division.

BNP Paribas is stepping up its efforts in the US credit markets with the expansion of the junk bond sales and trading operation. The French bank has made three hires for its U.S. high yield operation: John Agnew, Dan Raedle and Hutch Peglar. Agnew, a former managing director and Peglar join from Fleet Securities, now part of Bank of America. Agnew will be a senior trader and Peglar a high yield analyst. Raedle previously worked in high yield and distressed securities at Royal Bank of Canada.