The European asset manager has handed the new position to a Unigestion executive.

Paris-headquartered Amundi has appointed Bruno Taillardat to the newly-created role of head of smart beta.

Taillardat joins after nine years with Unigestion, where he was latterly investment director, responsible for quantitative and fundamental research. He previously spent nearly a decade at BNP Paribas Asset Management, where he was head of quantitative research in the international equity investments team.

Based in Paris, Taillardat will report to Laurent Trottier, Amundi’s global head of exchange-traded funds, indexing and smart beta management. 

Amundi has been developing smart beta strategies – both factor investing and alternative weighting schemes – in Europe for 10 years. It managed $9 billion of such assets as at the end of June 2016.

The company as a whole had €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) of assets under management worldwide as of 30 June.