Merrill Lynch Wealth Management has appointed Stefano Ferraro as market manager for Italy, based in Milan.

Ferraro joins from Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, where he was most recently head of institutional client relationships; his other roles at Crédit Agricole included head of corporate coverage and senior banker. Before that, he worked at Livolsi & Partners as a senior manager focusing on mergers, acquisitions and initial public offerings. He has also worked at BNP Paribas.

In his new role Ferraro will be responsible for growing the MLWM business in Italy, aiming to support financial advisors and to enhance the firm’s offering to clients. He reports functionally to Gilles Dard, head of Continental Europe at MLWM, and regionally, as a member of the Italian country leadership team, to Maurizio Tamagnini, country executive for Italy.

Dard pointed out in a statement that the Merrill Lynch Capgemini World Wealth Report 2011 found Italy to have the ninth largest population of high net worth individuals globally.

Earlier this week the firm expanded its UK team with the appointment of David Harrison as a portfolio manager within the Merrill Lynch Portfolio Managers business in London.