Brown surfaces at S&P

Former head of IOOF retail funds management Jarrod Brown has landed a new post with research house Standard & Poor’s (S&P) as its executive, investment services.

Brown’s position is newly created and has been formalised to help S&P’s plans to strengthen its presence in the wealth management arena.

“We’ve been building our businesses in the wealth management space to provide research, indices and other services, like investment consulting for companies, for a couple of years now,” S&P managing director Chris Dalton said.

“We’ve now got critical mass with a number of new clients and we’re looking to accelerate our penetration particularly with the financial planner dealer groups and platforms that use our research and ratings and Jarrod’s availability has allowed us to pick an experienced person up who understands that part of the market and will be out there aggressively pitching for more business in this space,” he added.

Apart from driving the firm’s wealth management initiatives, Dalton said Brown will also be involved in S&P’s extension of its ratings and research activities in the direct property sector and the expansion of its services in Asian markets.

According to Dalton, the creation of Brown’s position falls into line with S&P’s new focus on qualitative research, having sold its managed funds data business to Morningstar earlier this year.

The new job will see Brown report to Dalton and work closely with the heads of the research, investment consulting and index services arms of the operation.

The appointment marks Brown first role since his surprise departure from IOOF in August last year after three years with the financial services company.