Evergreen's Cieszko, Citi's Orazem to shepherd FMR's IM-, FO-service groups. Fidelity has named Peter Cieszko, formerly head of distribution for Wachovia's mutual-fund manager Evergreen, as president of its Institutional Services unit -- an investment- and insurance-product provider to independent broker-dealers, banks, trust companies and insurance companies.

Fidelity has also hired former Citigroup executive Ed Orazem to lead its Family Office Services (FOS) group, a unit that provides products, services and technologies to organizations that work for ultra-high-net-worth families.

Cieszko reports to Michael Clark, president of Fidelity's Institutional Products group. Orazem reports to Charles Goldman, the head of strategy for Fidelity's Institutional Wealth Services (IWS), its National Financial broker-dealer clearing subsidiary and FOS.

"We are aggressively building a market leading organization serving a diverse set of intermediary markets that has the scale, flexibility and innovative capabilities needed to win in a turbulent and changing business environment," says Clark. "Our Institutional Services and Family Office businesses are critical to our goal of positioning Fidelity as the premier destination for intermediaries to do business."

On hold

Fidelity says its Institutional Services group managed $272 billion through more than 1,000 financial institutions and 44,000 advisors at the end of September 2008. FOS worked with five or six dozen ultra-wealthy families "representing more than $9 billion in assets" at the end of last year's third quarter.

Adds Clark: "Peter and Ed are strong and experienced managers with proven success in leading organizations and ensuring that businesses can grow effectively, efficiently and aggressively, while at the same time maintaining a laser-like focus on improving the customer experience."

Cieszko surprised few when he left Evergreen just before Christmas. Last summer he was named to replace Dennis Ferro as Evergreen's president and CEO with the handover scheduled for 1 January 2009. But that promotion was put on hold last October when Wells Fargo agreed to acquire Wachovia.

Prior to joining Evergreen in mid 2006, Cieszko was distribution chief for asset manager Legg Mason. He was one of Citigroup Asset Management's (CAM) top executives when Citi sold the division to Legg Mason in 2005.

As head of CAM's U.S. retail and high-net-worth group from 2000, Cieszko presided over the biggest separately managed account (SMA) production complex in the business, with around $63.3 billion in assets under management by the time Legg Mason took over.

A hallmark of Cieszko's tenure at CAM was the rise of the multiple-discipline account (MDA) -- a blend of complementary investment styles in a single registered account. CAM had already been fiddling with MDAs for six or seven years when Cieszko took over the division's SMA business in 2000 and gave them the support they needed to achieve prominence.

Orazem is FOS' fourth chief in about 16 months. Founding president Lee Weiss left the group late in the summer of 2007 to establish a high-end investment advisory called Family Endowment Partners. His replacement Roger Hobby had the job until last June, when he joined Wilmington Trust. John Hurley, formerly a member of Fidelity's consulting business, then became FOS' interim president while the company set about finding a permanent replacement -- Orazem, as it turned out.

Orazem was a managing director of Citi's wealth-management division for more than 13 years. In addition to stints as head of its ultra-high-net-worth product arm and manager of its family-office custody group, he developed Smith Barney's trust company from a start-up and managed its merger with Citi's trust and estates department to form Citigroup Trust.

Last June -- five years into its development and two years after a soft launch in the second quarter of 2006 -- Fidelity said FOS's technology platform needed an overhaul.

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